Yet another bimbo "wellness" blogger found to be a fraud

[Mighty_Girl]

I have been a food blogger for well more than a decade. I write about food. I don’t dispense medical advice because I am not a medical professional. As a matter of fact, I don’t make a living from blogging, although most of my clients find me through the blog.

During these 13 years I have seen every “health” fad come and go, and I managed to stay out of them. When I needed to write about organics, I interviewed experts. When I needed to talk about diabetes, I interviewed actual experts. I researched their answers, there was nothing outrageous about those claims.

As of lately a new type of social media type has surfaced, the “pretty white girl” that gets a huge following convincing people that changing their diets to “clean”, “natural” “raw” or what have you will cure serious diseases (like cancer and diabetes). Some months ago the light was shone upon The Food Babe, who, amongst other ridiculous claims, she blames her prior diet for her getting apendicitis (she doesn’t say it’s apendicitis in her blog, because it sounds more dramatic thusly:

My typical American diet landed me where that diet typically does, in a hospital. It was then, in the hospital bed more than ten years ago, that I decided to make health my number one priority.

Apparently she’s also an aviation expert:

In another much-mocked post, “Food Babe Travel Essentials — No Reason to Panic on the Plane!” Ms. Hari criticized the air on an airplane. Because of cost concerns, the air “pumped in isn’t pure oxygen, either, it’s mixed with nitrogen, sometimes at almost 50 percent,” she wrote. Except ambient air isn’t pure oxygen, either. It’s roughly 78 percent nitrogen. The widely discredited post, where Ms. Hari also complained about the flight attendants’ stinginess with water in first class, was removed swiftly.

Then there’s the tragic case of The Wellness Warrior, who passed away a couple of months ago after “thriving with cancer” for 7 years. And by “thriving” she meant following the discredited Gerson Therapy (which includes coffee enemas, I kid you not). Even when it was obvious that she hadn’t been cured, or even gotten better with all this nonsense, she refused to come clean (no pun intended).

The latest case is the very ridiculous Belle Gibson, who convinced everyone from magazines to Apple that she was managing her multiple “terminal” cancers with diet and woo. She has apparently been unmasked as a liar, a fraud and a con woman.

The sad thing is that, it was the press that propped her up (Cosmo gave her an award, Elle called her “The Most Inspiring Woman You’ve Met This Year”). Elle even received an email that warned them about Gibson, but they brushed it off and did no research (well, the googled her).

I am sick and tired of all this “cleansing” and “detoxing” nonsense. These charlatans’ words are repeated over and over on social media (I am starting to block people on FB). I am mad at these charlatans, but mostly I am mad at the press for throwing soft balls at people like them and Jenny McCarthy. For giving them a wider forum and amplifying their voices. For choosing glossy stories and pretty faces over the sad reality that sometimes what science has to offer is messy, painful, horrifying, but ultimately the best we have at this time.

What the hell ever happened to journalism?

[Gatopescado]

I distinctly remember the first time I heard the term “Wellness”.

[Skywatcher]

@Mighty_Girl

Then there’s the tragic case of The Wellness Warrior, who passed away a couple of months ago after “thriving with cancer” for 7 years. And by “thriving” she meant following the discredited Gerson Therapy (which includes coffee enemas, I kid you not).

With cream & sugar?

[Icarus]

@Mighty_Girl

What the hell ever happened to journalism?

People don’t want journalism. Journalism makes them feel bad. People don’t want to feel bad, they want to feel good - have hope! These snake-oil saleswomen make them feel good!

Rinse & repeat.

[dropzone]

@Skywatcher

With cream & sugar?

Of course! The key to wellness is regularity, and how better with a “regular” coffee?

@Gatopescado

I distinctly remember the first time I heard the term “Wellness”.

Did you puke? I know I did.

[Broomstick]

People want a magic cure for what ails them. The treatments that actually work for a disease like cancer have horrific side effects which have only been slightly moderated by recent advances. In fact, conventional cancer treatment, for all its (limited) success, can make you feel worse than the actual cancer does for much of the course of the disease. Of course people want a Magic Pill or Magic Diet or Magic Enema that, in comparison, is much easier to tolerate. The ritualistic aspects of some of these woo-woo “treatments” take on the appearance of magical thinking or bargaining with god - if I just do X, then Y will be kept at bay.

I don’t really have a good answer to the above, unfortunately.

[Mighty_Girl]

@dropzone

Of course! The key to wellness is regularity, and how better with a “regular” coffee?

Did you puke? I know I did.

Have you considered detoxing?

[Helena330]

Would you PM me a link to your blog?

[Leaffan]

I read about the Food Babe a few weeks back. She’s a complete nutbar. Her education is not in nutrition or health or anything related, and I’m too lazy to look up her actual credentials.

There were other gems in the airplane post.

When your body is in the air, at a seriously high altitude, your body under goes some serious pressure. Just think about it – Airplanes thrive in places we don’t. You are traveling in a pressurized cabin, and when your body is pressurized, it gets really compressed!

Compression leads to all sorts of issues. First off your body’s digestive organs start to shrink, taxing your ability to digest large quantities of food. Secondly, this compression reduces the ability for your body to normally circulate blood through your blood vessels.

[jz78817]

@Mighty_Girl

Have you considered detoxing?

my liver and kidneys are (hopefully) fully functional. I’m continually detoxing

@Helena330

Would you PM me a link to your blog?

heck, if you want, just post the link.

[sich_hinaufwinden]

@Leaffan

I read about the Food Babe a few weeks back. She’s a complete nutbar. Her education is not in nutrition or health or anything related, and I’m too lazy to look up her actual credentials.

There were other gems in the airplane post.

OMG - how stupid! She doesn’t even explain if it’s lossy compression or lossless compression! Makes a huge difference!

Study it out sheeple!!

[SeaDragonTattoo]

I’m 100% behind the OP. When I’ve been asked about or attempts made to bring me into conversations about “detoxing,” my go-to response is along the lines of, “I’m not on any liver transplant list. My liver works fine,” and walk away.

[BrainGlutton]

@Mighty_Girl

What the hell ever happened to journalism?

The media outlets came under the control of MBAs in suits who don’t care about journalism.

[kaylasdad99]

Yep. They discovered that pandering costs less to produce, AND sells at a higher mark-up.

[get_lives]

In between “skeptics” (people that are trying to justify their own poor diet/lifestyle choices), charlatans of woo, charlatan victims, and sincere-but-mistaken experimenters/believers of woo, there is a middle ground. The number of people in this middle ground is relatively small, though, for many reasons.

Some of us work their way to/toward that middle ground through persistence. Some never even attempt to approach it.

[Leaffan]

@sich_hinaufwinden

OMG - how stupid! She doesn’t even explain if it’s lossy compression or lossless compression! Makes a huge difference!

Study it out sheeple!!

I’m sorry. Am I missing something here?

[Jackmannii]

@get_lives

In between “skeptics” (people that are trying to justify their own poor diet/lifestyle choices), charlatans of woo, charlatan victims, and sincere-but-mistaken experimenters/believers of woo, there is a middle ground. The number of people in this middle ground is relatively small, though, for many reasons.

There is no rational middle ground between science-based nutrition and woo jackassery. You have fallen for the appeal to moderation fallacy.

As for people trying to justify poor lifestyle choices, I think you misspelled “smokers”. Or maybe “vapers”.

[kaylasdad99]

You could be missing the play on words that conflates “compression” in the sense of physically squeezing with “compression” in the sense of reducing the amount of disk space that a digital file uses up, Leaffan.

[get_lives]

@Jackmannii

There is no rational middle ground between science-based nutrition and woo jackassery. You have fallen for the appeal to moderation fallacy.

As for people trying to justify poor lifestyle choices, I think you misspelled “smokers”. Or maybe “vapers”.

And yet I pretty much always find skeptics to be of the overweight middle-aged male variety. They happen to be full of excuses about their dietary choices, and words like “correlation” and “science” seem to get used a lot. The mention of their weight is met with lots of emotions, though. They have no skeptical distance on that, generally speaking. shrug

[dropzone]

@Mighty_Girl

Have you considered detoxing?

I dunno. Is a coffee enema as much like mainlining caffeine as it sounds? 'Cuz if it is, count me in!