Reeling Under Reels – Why Health Fads Are A Party Pooper

I’m not bragging but I’d like to think that I’m up to date with current health fads and beauty secrets. Like the news about Kim Kardashian taking Ozempic for obesity, taping mouths to encourage nose breathing or using flax seed masks as a Botox alternative. And yet, when I scroll reels of women with Korean glass skin and glossy hair mercilessly destroying every health obstacle in their path to attain an influencer status, there is a sinking feeling within me – what am I doing with my life? 

To make things worse, seasonal celebrity and viral sensation Shalini Passi pops up every time I open my Instagram. As I sip my green tea, the ‘high ponytailed lady’ talks about her morning routine that begins with warm lemon water with apple cider vinegar, ghee shots, garlic cloves, followed by carrot-beet-spinach juice and soaked almonds. Socialite art collector, Shalini Passi flirts with fifty but has only two grey strands in her dazzling black hair when I have the reverse – only two black strands. And I’m not even sure about those two. 

To be honest, the only habit that puts me in the same league as Ms. Passi is that I don’t hold grudges and yet my skin resembles a moon crater. For the ignorant, Shalini says ‘the only reason I don’t hold grudges against people is because it affects my skin’. Frankly, I’m now waiting for Shalini to reveal the secret of her glowing twin assets for those bountiful mounds are the only thing that distract us from her beatific face.

Reeling Under Reels – Why Health Fads Are A Party Pooper

All too often, such viral pitches made by health influencers result in two outcomes. One, they make you feel like a pitiful human who has no control over wellbeing. Two, you begin to follow their advice like drinking ghee shots because it’s a matter of belief through repetition than truth through research. 

So I’m at a party where this gorgeous middle-aged lady holds attention and women hang on to every word from her. Turns out, she’s a freshly minted nutritionist with viral reels on ‘how to reverse diabetes’, ‘how to nourish your armpit hair’ and ‘how to fart silently’. Well, no. I made up the last two. Anyway, half a dozen ladies join in the health relay by sharing their personal health battles and subsequent wins. Giving up sugar is passé; the conversation veers towards the benefits of giving up flour and oil. What? No gobhi paratha? Are we discussing food habits of Tibetian monks? Delhi pollution will kill us anyway. 

After a long inconclusive debate over normal salt versus pink salt, the nutritionist lady began her epic narration on how to make perfect hair oil by boiling curry leaves, onion pulp, hibiscus flowers and fenugreek. Her semi-bald husband joined in, looking admirably at his wife as if she just won a Nobel in hair care. ‘She has tremendous willpower,’ he announced triumphantly. 

I’m sure. 

Dinner is served but I lost my appetite. Perhaps I do not have any higher purpose in life. Or perhaps it’s okay because even when we didn’t have the technology to simultaneously chat with four people and watch reels while we took a dump, we were healthier and fitter. This is when I noticed the influencer lady pick up a flatbread and butter chicken. 

‘Cheat day’, she giggled sheepishly. 

Views expressed by the author are their own