Pseudoscience is worryingly rampant in the world of diets. From diets which claim to cure cancer (Levy, 2018), AIDS (West & West, 2018) or even homosexuality (“Doctor Finds Homosexuality Cure, Involves a Better Diet, Less Alcohol, Exercise”, 2014), the lack of scientific backing in modern diets is alarming. How has diet culture become such a wasteland of misinformation and heinous claims?
The easiest sale is one made out of desperation. Desperate people are willing to pay any price, believe any claim, do whatever it takes to change their situation. Who are these desperate few? People afflicted by diseases such as cancer or AIDS. People who are being slowly destroyed by their size. People who are killing themselves because of their self-image. What if this one easy miracle diet could change all that? If all you had to do was drink lemon water 8 times a day, and be free from all these worries?
These ‘miracle cure’ diets are predatory, praying on the vulnerable. The mass circulation of misinformation of food only adds fuel to the ‘miracle diet’ fire. Warner listed causes of diet kidology being contradicting studies, unreliable results and vague scientific mumbo-jumbo (“Heart of the Problem”, n.d.). This all means that there are very little real, tangible facts about diets. These few morsels of truth are then being drowned out by wave upon wave of ‘miracle diets’. The murkier the world of diet information, the more these predatory diets thrive and multiply, infecting more and more vulnerable people, feeding off desperation and fear, manipulating our modern concepts about what good food really is.
References
Doctor Finds Homosexuality Cure, Involves A Better Diet, Less Alcohol, Exercise. (2014, April 18). Retrieved from https://www.autostraddle.com/pseudo-doctor-says-drinking-water-cures-gay-63257/
Heart of the Problem. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://angry-chef.com/blog/heart-of-the-problem
Levy, J. (2018, May 21). Top 12 Cancer-Fighting Foods & Other Natural Remedies. Retrieved from https://draxe.com/cancer-fighting-foods/
West, J., & West, J. (2018, May 01). A cure for AIDS through herbs and spices. Retrieved from https://medium.com/fourgeez/a-cure-for-aids-through-herbs-and-spices-2c7361d6873c
I 100% agree. The current information environment, particularly on the web, is very conducive to these stupid fads because people are looking for ‘miracle cures’ as you have said. The issue is they believe the pseudo-science they are presented with because of the way people tend to treat Scientists as either gospels of knowledge or deceitful liars depending on whether the scientist offers what they want or not (as is the case with global warming for / against arguments).
Miracle is an interesting concept and I fully agree with you about people’s hunger for miracles. Miracle seems to be something that is magical, very strange and full of shock value. I think most people do not 100% believe in these diets but are still willing to give them a try because they are desperate and there is the word miracle in it. It also reflects how ‘folk science’ sometimes can be really misleading. Having angry chief’s ideas in mind, these miracles do not claim to be ‘magical’ but they do claim somewhat ‘scientific’. The misconception of what food can do is really powerful in influencing people’s diet.
I like how you’ve linked the “murkiness” of online diet information to these diets’ power to manipulate us. Equally important is your point that we allow ourselves to be manipulated. I think that when we’re desperate for a miracle we have a very selective consciousness; we’re not actually looking for a credible new cure, but rather we’re looking for something which will justify what we already think about dieting. The angry chef mentioned this when he outlines how scientific reports will often contradict each other, and the public is entirely free to choose who they want to believe. Perhaps, the power of online diet advertisement isn’t in persuading us that the diet is scientific, but in bolstering us and our already existing ideas about health.
It’s shocking how prevalent the whole ‘pseudo-scientific diet’ thing is. I’ve seen so many spam ads for ‘miracle diets’ that claim to do impossible things (I even saw one which promised to make you more successful in business, like, what?).
But I think it’s even more depressing to realize that these diets aren’t just materializing out of thin air. People, other human beings, are actually making it their mission to mislead people into clicking links to their phony food-blogs and fake news sites so that they can make ad revenue off vulnerable people struggling with real issues. I guarantee these people don’t follow the diet regime they’re peddling, they’re just coming up with something that sounds ‘close enough’ to a diet that might help with a problem and slapping it online for cash.
It’s sad, and I wish I knew what to do about it.
Your title perfectly sums up the click-bait era of diet crazes modern society seems to be stuck in.
I like how you use the word pretatory. Because although it’s crazy to think that anyone would actually believe ones sexuality could changed, or “cured” according to your cited article, seems ridiculous. You’re completely right in saying that these diets are predatory in nature as they are meant to suck people in with false facts and dramatic reveals of numerous health benefits.
They prey on vulnerabilities and provide answers for those lost.
This post is a great follow up when considering what the Angry Chef said about humans naturally looking for the least complex answer – and serves almost as proof that those writing these articles prey on that instinct.
Superstition results in a pretty interesting cocktail of strangeness, for sure. I guess it’s because we have this tendency for hope or for fear – even though the diet’s been proved unscientific, we still have the faintest hope and that’s enough to give it a chance. The same thing happened with the anti-vaxxing movement – there isn’t any proof of them being connected with autism, and yet some people feel the slightest fear, which is enough to start a landslide of conspiracy and wanting to believe misinformation.
I was watching a version of Pandora’s Box the other day, and I’ve always thought of the hope that was last in the box as a positive thing (i.e., our troubles are what highlight the beauty of hope), but it was mentioned that many Ancient Greeks actually thought of hope as being negative – as empty hope, which causes you to rely only on false hopes rather than making an effort yourself, or as something that prolongs suffering. I think this case of hope being sometimes negative is definitely relevant with diet and other fads.