News editor Look At Me Pauline Esakova talks about how she met with supporters of "healthy lifestyle", and what she learned from it made.
One day I decided to live better. I remember: I was spotted in a store on the stand a popular fitness magazine. Deciding that he needed me and I put it in a basket and went to the cashier. Disappointment awaited me at home: in the main article number authors talked about detox diet, without irony leading Ayurveda as an argument. The magazine had to throw in the trash, but my attempts to improve their way of life did not end.
The more I immersed into the world of a healthy way of life, the more I discover obscurantism: the advice to drink in the morning a glass of hot water with lemon juice, to "remove the body of excess acid (!)", The recommendation to consume at night honey and cinnamon (to burn fat in the body), it is quite a serious proposal to go to the steam room at the gym, "to bring all the toxins." In the cafe, serve "healthy food", they told me that they do not serve cola-light, "because in it the chemistry." (It is interesting that, in their opinion, was there to sell orange juice? Is Physics?) Finally, I came across a blog, whose author is urged to give up sugar. First there was a cake recipe with sweet apples. At this point I gave up.
The most amazing thing is this: all of these valuable advice did not come from the grandmothers, subscribed to the magazine "Healthy Life Style" and looking Malakhov, and from people under 40 with higher education (in some cases even the natural sciences). At the same time the more absurd was the means, the more he is credited with miraculous properties.
Of course, laugh at the magazine "Healthy Life Style" is easy (there would be to add "and nice," but it's not, if you understand what they are reading it, and follow the advice of his people are often desperate). Where as unpleasant to realize that we ourselves can easily believe in the magical properties of some goji berries, organic vegetables and chia seeds. Simply put a dozen recipes concisely designed blog with sonorous name like Clean Eating Happiness, accompanied by a beautiful photo of dishes and products against what some old boards and a portrait of the author's recipes (usually toned lady somewhere under 30). To be more convincing, you can add stories about the virtues of non-sugar (meat, cereals, GMOs, milk - underline), and to accompany it all links to carefully selected research, and even better - their retelling in some kind of not very meticulous media. That's all ready popular blog about healthy lifestyles, which in the best of circumstances could develop into a popular book, application, transfer or something else. And most will not have even a shadow of the question of whether the author's at least some scientific basis.
Again, by itself this is not all that bad. The real problems begin where there are those who are ready to capitalize on the fears, and often the diseases of others. And in the best case, their ideas are without any scientific foundation and are simply harmless, like detox diet, which actively promotes the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. In the worst - they harm those who rely on them. In February of this year in Australia, died Jess Ainscow, better known as the author of the blog The Wellness Warrior. She died from a rare species of sarcoma, the only reliable way to combat that is amputation, if Ainscow - left hand. Instead of surgery, she decided to be treated with so-called Gerson therapy, consisting of hourly consumption of vegetable juice and regular coffee enemas. Media wrote enthusiastically about Ainscow and its "healing", although no healing was not just the tumor develops very slowly. But everyone seems to want to believe that "healthy lifestyle" can do everything.
This, in fact, is the main pitfall of "healthy lifestyle", he gives us the illusion that we have full control of their health. We disclaim meat and milk, we try to discover information about GMOs on the labels, run every day, doing "detox" - and it seems to us that we protect ourselves from any illness (including most probably the worst - cancer), although it is not so . That is probably why many fitness blogs love words associated with the struggle in titles like The Health Warrior.
Actually, I do not mind that people refused to anything you like, for whatever reasons. Far more worrying is that the belief in the omnipotence of a healthy lifestyle is deceiving us, making neglect their own health and not notice disease at an early stage, and at the same time makes us fanatics uyazvivymi to (at best) and outright crooks (worst).