Heath, Fitness, and Bullshit

How often have you seen advertisements promising that you will lose a ridiculous amount of weight in a short amount of time or an advertisement for a ‘detox’ tea? How many ‘experts’ do you see giving advice that often conflicts with one another?  These days in the health and fitness industry, bullshit is rampant and it can be hard to determine who is knowledgeable and providing correct information and who is lying for their own personal gain; whether it is to sell you a product, a workout program, or just to mislead you.

The rise of social media in the last decade has given anybody the ability to gather a large following and have the world as an audience to express their views and ideas. The fitness industry has drastically grown in popularity since the rise of social media, giving way to ‘fitness influencers’ who use social media to promote workout programs and supplements. The most common way these influencers will bullshit unknowing people is by advertising a workout program or supplement that promises to transform your body in a short amount of time, while they conveniently leave out the fact that they take PEDs, or performance enhancing drugs, such as anabolic steroids. This misleads people into believing they can reshape their body just by taking their supplements and doing their workouts. Supplement companies are enabled to bullshit consumers as they are not required by the FDA to regulate their products meaning that many of them are dishonest about how much of or even what ingredients are in their products.

 

Frankfurt writes in On Truth, Lies, and Bullshit, “The fact about herself that the bullshitter hides… is that the truth values of her statements are not of central interest to her.”¹ This quote holds true to many of the ‘fitness gurus’ and companies trying to mislead people into buying their products or programs as they are knowingly bullshitting to profit off of you. The only thing they care about is making a profit, even if what they’re selling could negatively affect your health in the long term. In Social Networking Technology and the Virtues, Shannon Vallor writes, “Honesty as a virtue is the willingness in words and deeds to put one’s authentic self in play.”² It is much harder to determine if someone is being honest online than it is in person because people can disguise body language and mannerisms that would make you question their motives in person. People online use this to their advantage because it is easier to mislead people online since it is harder to determine if you are honest or not; similar to the way it is hard to read sarcasm online. The only way to truly know if supplements are safe or not is to ask your doctor as they will be knowledgeable about the products and can inform you about their effects and if they are safe.

References:

1.     Frankfurt, Harry. “On Truth, Lies, and Bullshit.” The Philosophy of Deception, 2009, pp. 37–48., doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327939.003.0003.

2. Vallor, Shannon. “Social Networking Technology and the Virtues.” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 12, no. 2, 2009, pp. 157–170., doi:10.1007/s10676-009-9202-1.

Health, Fitness, and Bullshit

How often have you seen advertisements promising that you will lose a ridiculous amount of weight in a short amount of time or an advertisement for a ‘detox’ tea? How many ‘experts’ do you see giving advice that often conflicts with one another?  These days in the health and fitness industry, bullshit is rampant and it can be hard to determine who is knowledgeable and providing correct information and who is lying for their own personal gain; whether is it to sell you a product, a workout program, or just to mislead you. Most of the products ‘fitness experts’ try to sell you are supplements and the rise in social media usage has given these people the world’s largest stage as a platform to push their products.

According to the New York Times, “the dietary supplements that are the backbone of wellness make up a $30 billion a year business despite studies showing they have no value for longevity.”¹  The vast majority of the supplements being sold promoting things such as weight loss are snake oil, a term used to describe products that make false claims and provide no real value to the consumer. To the average consumer trying to better themselves and get healthier, the overload of conflicting information can halt their progress or even stop it entirely because of bad information they may be receiving; ironically making them unhealthier in the process.

Frankfurt writes in On Truth, Lies, and Bullshit, “The fact about herself that the bullshitter hides… is that the truth values of her statements are not of central interest to her.”² This quote holds true to many of the gurus trying to mislead people into buying their products or programs as they are knowingly bullshitting to profit off of you. However there is a gray area. There exists people who may be misleading you, but unintentionally. They may just be ignorant to new research and have outdated information at their disposal. Frankfurt also writes, “for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false”². It is important to be aware of these people’s intentions and whether they seem to be genuine or just trying to sell a product.