Can we trust the Internet to keep us healthy?
Is our pursuit for #wellness actually working?
A photo and written essay
24/11/2021
In September of 2019, Instagram made a sweep of changes restricting the visibility of dieting content that ‘made a miraculous claim about certain diet or weight loss products and is linked to a commercial offer’. After that many brands that promoted products like weight-loss teas and shakes had their feed replaced with content warnings, restricting access to people over the age of 18. Yet, when you look at these profiles today it’s like this policy never existed. The only remnant of this seems to be a warning message that appears when you search the word skinny in Instagram’s search engine.
When it comes to health and social media we are still somewhat undecided on whether it is good or bad. But one thing has become clear, we rely almost solely on social media to get our news and health-related information. The Internet has become a major player in public health.
From the outset, social media seems like the perfect medium for health interventions. It is used by billions of people worldwide and removes many barriers to care including location, socioeconomic situation, and stigma. Despite this, it seems that social media has possibly caused more problems than it has solved.
Fads come and go in health and wellness but the impact still remains the same. Whether it was the wave of kale smoothies and fitspo or body positivity and intuitive eating and each fluctuation of vegan, keto, and paleo. Rates of depression have climbed since the inception of social media, with over 264 million affected worldwide, and clinically reported eating disorders have doubled since 2000. The flip side? Social media has also provided a space for people to connect and get support from others experiencing similar health issues that may have been harder to find previously. The problem is that trying to navigate health information and what is true is becoming increasingly difficult. The wellness industry is estimated to be valued at around US$4.5 trillion globally. An industry that largely relies on the elite communities of wellness that social media has created and leaves behind those that need it the most.
Health science information as it is usually presented in research articles doesn’t translate very well into social media. It is full of nuance, degrees of truth, contradictions, biases, and data that is often quite hard to interpret. In contrast, social media favours content that is emotive and divisive and plays into the user’s already established belief systems. In short, content that does the best is content that tells the best story, told by the best storyteller whether it is true or not.
Just as it has affected politics, social media has affected health information both on public health and an individual level. It has created a series of echo chambers of differing theories on health and diet advice who will often engage in lengthy arguments about which diet is the best or whether ‘insert supplement’ is helpful or harmful. Different elements of conspiracy theories have also started to slip into the wellness circuit and it seems that the only thing capable of tackling that is the K-pop stans.
There is no doubt that social media is playing a huge role in public health, eating behaviours, and mental health, especially for young people. There is no consensus on how to tackle these problems and the nature of misinformation and biases that exist within social media. We all tend to believe the information that matches our worldview and personal experiences.
Health is extremely personal and profound. Dietary choices have become part of our identity and our communities. Because they are part of the way we present ourselves to others online. Who would’ve thought that we would get that from something as innocuous as taking a photo of our breakfast? It is a large part of why it draws so much attention and such extreme reactions from people when others present a differing theory on a diet for optimal health.
Health is intertwined with our stories and it is our stories that we share on social media. So going forward, how can we tell the story of science and health better to help combat the current mine-field that is health and wellness on social media?
