Extreme diets and health trends people are swearing by | 60 Minutes Australia

If you're sitting at home feeling fine thinking you're perfectly

health

y, well, half your luck, but keep in mind that living among us there are an increasing number of new age gurus who believe you still have some problems that need to be sorted out, now it turns out they can very kindly help for a price, they claim that coffee enemas, carnivore

diets

, intravenous drips, even burning candles focused on the vagina will give you the much needed buzz these days. The largely unregulated world of wellness is worth $7 trillion, or three times more than the traditional pharmaceutical industry. But is all this effort to be

health

y actually making us sick?

There is no better way to start an investigation into the wellness industry than by making sure my chakras are aligned with some Sunrise yoga and as we inhale, we lift the top. Leg as high as you can exhale floating down. This simply glorious venue is Eden Health's Gold Coast hinterland retreat in an industry that has seen its fair share of flashes in the pan. This place is a pillar of the wellness movement. Why do you think

people

come here, they are aware that something in life is not right right now and that is why they come looking for a space to pause and see what is not working and it is a space to really pause and reflect.

Shona Phillips is the general manager of Eden, where for 700 a night guests can enjoy simple, healthy eating or dabble in more advanced relaxation treatments, such as Sound Bowl therapy, health and wellness is a long game, not There's a quick fix when you see some of the new stuff. The health

trends

that make headlines every year make you roll your eyes and think: Oh, here we go, we've definitely seen so many different practices come and go in the health and wellness space, and the ones that have stagnated are the ones who have integrity and evidence behind them Wellness now there's a word you don't hear every day means exactly what you might think it means the opposite of illness thank you It was in the late 1970s when Wellness burst onto the scene for first time and it has been evolving since then and since you are a woman for much of your life you need iron, much more iron than even a man, that is why we offer you one vitamin a day plus iron.

I don't know how I'm alive now, but in recent years, influencers and podcasters around the world have pushed it with a new must-have product that you simply have to buy if you're serious about your health, how bad is it to feel good every day? and there may be no more famous or some might say infamous face linked to the modern wellness movement than Gwyneth Paltrow when I started Goop in 2008. I thought my calling was something other than kissing Matt Damon on screen or whatever the actress is now worth a quarter of. billion dollars thanks to his Empire goop that promotes everything from Fitness Trends to candles, well you can read the label while we're recording this right now, you have a little IV so I'm a brand for both of us, we parted ways.

IV at the same time, the most recent controversy was Gwyneth doing a podcast bragging about her intermittent fasting diet or simultaneously receiving nutrients through an IV drip. I love the IV. I am an early adopter of intravenous glutathione. I love having it intravenously. random, more fringe, a phosphatidyl call, that's my favorite IV, when I can find them, they're pretty hard to find and they make me feel so good there's a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to wellness, but you know, try to rationalize and convincing someone or The culture that undertakes to misunderstand you is a futile act.

Dr. Will Cole. He is one of Gwyneth's best health friends. Conventional doctors often dismiss this practice, but proponents of functional medicine say it uncovers the supposedly hidden causes that lead to

people

's chronic health problems in past generations. If we're interviewing a doctor, it would be a stuffy old guy with a stethoscope around him. neck and here you are, you know, a young, handsome rooster with healthy skin, a beautiful head of hair and a jean jacket. You know, this is the changing face of Health. I guess so, I hope so. I think that's good. I think that speaks to the world. changing and maybe a kind of breath of fresh air and conversations about health and well-being someone on my team recently said it would be like going to a dentist with bad teeth.

Hopefully I can see the wellness part. Do you wake up feeling refreshed? You are more exhausted when you wake up, but when you become a celebrity. A figure of health. Your services are not cheap. An initial one-hour telehealth consultation with Dr. Cole will cost you over a thousand dollars, but many people still can't get enough of it. Modern wellness guru. What's up and welcome to the art of being well. I'm a leading functional medicine doctor and, as the kids say, I recently burst onto the internet as the host of that podcast where Gwyneth Paltrow revealed her controversial fast eating habits.

I usually eat something about 12. Um, and in the morning I'll have some things that won't spike my blood sugar, so I have coffee, but I really like soup for lunch. Um, I eat bone broth for lunch many of the days you have. A lot of work with Cooper and with Gwyneth Paltrow and her and her business for a lot of people sums up everything they love about wellness or everything they absolutely hate about this industry, why do you think it's become so polarizing here? I think this is an example of selective outrage where people hyperventilate over bone broth and intermittent fasting.

Yes, intermittent fasting and bone broth could probably seem radical, but I think it's our disconnection that determines how far we've fallen as a society when it comes to optimal health. considered radical oh yes oh yes please remind me Gwyneth when our paleolithic ancestors put cannulas in their arms and applied a layer of phosphatidyl in a bag oh yes they weren't when you hear the word wellness in 2023 what goes through your mind

diets

trendy coffee enemas, the carnivore diet and, um, useless intravenous drips when you can just eat food and drink water overseas, where it has become a hit for calling BS on new wellness

trends

, as we can see here, these are some of the results of all the individual studies that show that Overall, he is dismayed that so many people are being sucked into fads that he says are not backed by medical science and it is a small pediatric feeding tube that I It will provide a perfect balance of nutrition for the next 10 days.

Are there individuals who put these devices on intentionally? It's downright disgusting. Rent is literally depression. Why will eating bread make you depressed? He had no idea that bread was the seventh infinity stone that altered reality and created mental illnesses out of thin air. This always has to be something that costs hundreds of dollars in their mind: the wellness industry is motivated more by health or profit, not by health at all. , profits absolutely, it's almost trying to invent a problem to make you believe that you have a problem and then you have your foot in the door of well-being, everything you see is directed at you, so if you have a problem, surprisingly they have the solution, it's amazing, yes, exactly on point, and you know the way the algorithms now work online and with what you search on Google and what you see on your Instagram feed or on your Tick Tock feed, You know that once you spend a little time looking at one thing, everything becomes commercialized, everything else is related to the same topic.

It's become complicated, a bit self-obsessed, in a way that I actually find increasingly restrictive rather than liberating, you have a hundred meals on your face, at least one more day at the office. Elise Lunen lived and breathed wellness culture as chief content officer at goop. The backdrop of this photo, a typically provocative marketing move for the brand, describes itself as the pinnacle of wellness. Spear and Gwyneth Paltrow said it simply wouldn't exist without a lease, but in 2020 it caused a stir when she quit and vowed never to. another clean diet and the launch of what she described as a rebellion against much of the wellness industry, why did she back away from her role?

Ultimately, no, I don't want to think about marketing, advertising, business or margins. I want to write. I want to make a podcast. I want to think about the world outside of commercial limitations. I think for those of us who are in good health and the obsession with our health is not good for us and there is a difference between being preventative and being attentive to our care and getting sick with worry women are very ashamed of the feelings we think we have. Elise has now become a prominent voice calling on the healthcare industry to cleanse itself of some of its toxic habits and she still believes there are many positive aspects to Wellness, but she encourages people to focus on what she calls wholeness instead of sweating over small things.

I don't want to be my own doctor. I really don't want it because I'll give myself five to six illnesses at lunchtime. Dr. Google is a pretty scary doctor Dr. Google is scary and you know, my dad is a doctor. Sometimes I wear an Apple Watch and I had to stop and I had a sleep tracking ring that I definitely had to stop wearing because I was compulsively checking my stats and You know, I kept texting my dad, well, he says my you know , my breathing rate changed. What does it mean that my HRV is filling in the blank and he said stop, like honey, stop, it doesn't mean anything?

One of the biggest problems with the wellness industry. is that due to people's obsession with seeking health advice online, moderate voices are often drowned out by those with some of the more

extreme

views you are a doctor I am when was the last time you ate a vegetable uh uh probably around five and a year and a half ago why do plants try to kill you Dr. Anthony Chafee is a picture of good health a ball of muscle that makes chins look like child's play, but remember when you were young Your mother said you won't grow up to be big and strong unless you eat your vegetables right, this Wellness Warrior is on a crusade to disprove that theory.

He has a prominent online promoter of the controversial carnivore diet. You are a doctor. I am When was the last time you ate a vegetable? Ah, uh, probably approximately. Five and a half years ago, human beings were the superpredators at the top of the food chain. What other superpredators eat salad? There are things in meat that you have to consume that you can't get from plants, but there is nothing in plants or mushrooms that you have to have. which you can't get from meat, so you have to eat meat and you certainly don't need to eat plants, and I would say you don't need to eat plants for optimal health.

It is worth noting right away that this is a very important problem. Questioned theory and has been repeatedly criticized by fact-checkers, but that hasn't stopped hundreds of thousands of people from following the Perth doctor's teachings on the increasingly popular carnivore diet, it's exactly what it sounds like, only animal products and not bread, fruit or heaven. ban a vegetable, take yesterday for example what did you have for breakfast not just once yesterday I found a place next to the hotel that had ribs and a bunch of burgers with bacon and that was all I ate yesterday how many ribs how many how many burgers I had a whole rack of ribs of pork ribs and then the burger stack was three burgers, they had cheese and six slices of bacon, not my whole slice of just bits, like traditional medicine doctors would say.

That's not only unhealthy, it's dangerous, yes. Absolutely, but those same practitioners and those who advise that same advice have made us fatter and sicker than we have ever been in the history of humanity. You are in heaven right now, yes, absolutely, so this is like going to a candy store for me, surely not? I don't want some salad, go and look at that goodness. Yes, we sat down to eat together at the Mid Machellaria restaurant and Anthony ate another kilo and a half of beef and lamb while I complemented my meal with the supposedly toxic salad that is quite healthy.

I'm told Dr. Chaffee is convinced that plants are a potentially deadly food source after his college professor taught him that two decades ago, but now, in the age of people searching for health solutions online , has found a large number of followers who eat up his teachings. I remember thinking in my head, but vegetables are still good for you, though in general, and I, theprofessor of cancer biology, he just looked at us and gave us a funny look and said, I don't eat salad. I need vegetables. I don't let my children eat vegetables. The plants are trying to kill you, so in my head I said, "Okay.

I'm going to stop eating vegetables. Maybe a lot of people will look at me and think this guy has lost his mind." Oh yes, your point of view is very much in the minority, absolutely, how can so many health experts be wrong? Well, people got a lot of things wrong, you know, most of these, experts thought the world was flat at one time, right, that they changed Brussels sprouts. 136 known carcinogenic plants are trying to kill you, well, they're doing a pretty lousy job of killing us, aren't they? Dr. Anthony finishes kale, lettuce, celery, cabbage Dr. Chafee is another online health promoter who has been reprimanded by Dr.

ID. called Tick-Tock Health Watchdog, you don't need to be a gym member, you can just run here. Dr. Ed says that while wellness trends may be new and exciting, the simple fact is that what will actually keep you healthy is pretty boring and that's kind of a problem. What's the secret to good health? The secret is actually not that secret, just follow the general lifestyle principles that have been well established for decades, five times a week, 13

minutes

of moderate intensity activity, making sure you consume enough plant-based foods . reducing our red meat intake and also consuming a lot of whole grains these things are not a secret and it's pretty boring it's boring it's boring but you know I'm not exactly going to click on that Instagram ad and that's why those things don't have the reach that other trends and fashions have and that is part of the problem.

People think it's a secret. It's no secret. Living proof is needed that focusing too much on health can be harmful. Sophie Smith, as a teenager, took up fitness. and the diet became dangerous a condition known as orthorexia it was a terrible secret that she was able to hide from family and friends the only external sign her weight loss is clearly seen here standing next to her identical twin I was listening to all these external messages to tell you too many of you know influences or, um, yeah, people online, can you explain what became the real problem and how it manifests into something bigger?

For me it became very obsessive. I would feel super anxious, really guilty. I was depriving myself, I guess, of a lot of things that you know, not just foods, but also experiences like having a birthday cake or having a good time at Christmas, because of all that, you know, delicious, delicious foods like that in these moments. Stressful for me, which is very yes, what I discovered, I guess through my recovery, was that yes, I had really turned in this direction of being so obsessive about food and exercise and weight to the point where which was, yes, really harmful.

I guess for my health it was a long and painful road to rehabilitation, so today it is quite an achievement for Sophie to be able to walk through a convenience store in search of a snack, a mission that previously would have worried her about the health implications that they instilled in him. by online fanatics foreign control of the narrative working as an advocate trying to expose The dangers of our obsession with health what I see is that many people you know do not intend to suffer from an eating disorder, of course, but their intention initially It's a little bit of health. kick, but those things can very quickly become a very slippery slope to an eating disorder.

Sophie is definitely not the only one saying the industry needs a health check; in fact it has led to a better court dispute which is unfolding at the moment and involving one of Australia's most successful Wellbeing Influences I'm here for both, there are plenty of people within the industry who think someone can shut up at this guy all the time, I mean, there are people trying to shut me up right now in class, right now in the New South. The south coast of Wales isn't exactly where you'd expect a wellness revolution to be born and the boss here, Jimmy Savai, isn't exactly Gwyneth Paltrow either.

I'm a Bogan from Nowra and that's who I am and without advertising. There is no great marketing. agencies could polish it the craft is yours vitamin company life botanics has found a niche in the market by undercutting rivals on price, claiming that competitors waste money on flashy marketing spins to lure you in I'd like to think of Us as the Audi of the industry, no, no, we just give you the product, like give you a key example and a moment where I thought you knew we had to start making these products and that's when my sister-in-Law came to my house and I was looking at a brand of vitamins that was on the market at the time, it was very influencing people in bikinis dancing with these products and they were like 50 dollars for a package of these magical supplements and I looked at them.

I looked at the ingredients and I said this only cost like five six dollars to make, so at most 10 to 15 dollars to retail and I looked at it and I thought, well, this is absolutely garbage and I looked at it and I thought, well, I just we make ours. How do companies with such huge profit margins get away with it? I think what they do is play on people's vulnerabilities sometimes and you know, being in that kind of situation sometimes, when your back is against the wall, you pay whatever you know for health or for looking. better, I think what people have a hard time justifying to themselves is that they will pay almost anything to feel better about themselves and I think it's unfair, do you think there are a lot of people within the industry who think that someone can keep quiet to this guy? all the time all the time I mean there are people trying to shut me down right now I mean they want to shut me up because at the end of the day they want to keep making all that money one person who definitely wants Jimmy to shut down above is Jessica Seeple, the extraordinarily successful founder of Sydney-based JS Health vitamin brand Skin science elevated by nature formulated for everyone It's time to live your own skin 34-year-old entrepreneur Empire is now estimated to be worth close to $500 million after having cultivated a has a large online following with a beautifully curated social media presence, there is nothing pretty about the feud she is now involved in with Jimmy Searby, she takes issue with the owner of Life Botanics making comparisons of prices between their products to help promote their own vitamins and questions their claim that their products are identical we had a very sophisticated form of advertising we took a photo of their product and took a photo of our product said take a look at the part back of yours take a look at the back of ours if you like this you'll love ours it's half the price and that really pissed off the apple it really pissed off the apple cart so they said we're going to start an action on the federal court facing the court. uh, the first time, I really don't know what to expect, I've never sat in the courtroom before, ever.

I've never been in front of a judge, are you channeling your Daryl? I'm 100 years old, you know, I even saw it with the family over the weekend and we traveled with Jimmy to one of the court hearings where he is accused of deception and deception. He claims the feud is ongoing and that's why Jessica Seeple decided not to talk to us, but win or lose. Jimmy is hell. Benton continues to hold a mirror up to the glamorous side of the industry. What really bothers me is that many of these companies are rich. What companies are trying to do is just promote a different type of lifestyle and what we're doing is just stripping all that away and telling people, hey, you know, you don't need to pay 60 for a package of supplements, you know? you can pay 20 dollars and you get the exact same product directly from the manufacturer.

Someone would say this is just your marketing spin, like you know everyone has their own sales pitch. Yours is at the competition's price. Well, I don't know if it's much. about the marketing spin, but my marketing angle is the fact that we don't charge brand tax, but at the end of the day we are talking about people's health and nutrition, yes, we are talking about health and nutrition of vulnerable people. and it's important to me to make sure people know the truth. Jimmy is far from the only person in wellness circles raising concerns that the industry promotes this idea that there are always problems that need to be fixed at exorbitant costs and many believe it's due to a kind of elitism, do you think That's the problem with welfare right now, that it's perceived as only for rich white people?

Yes, I think it's a problem and look, I think rich white people should be healthy too. Dr. Will Cole admits that the modern Wellness movement often promotes a type of Health that is completely unattainable for the average person; It is not enough for us to simply be a white boy or girl and say well about a certain socioeconomic background and say well, that is what Wellbeing means. it's about access, tools, empowerment and education, there's a disparity there, that's why we have podcasts, that's why we have group telehealth models to make them more accessible and affordable because it's a problem, but we have a long way to go to get a try, I'm learning, I have a lot to work on, can you give me a joke, a switch, oh my God, so right now your brain is working on both sides, dad, pick this one.

Did you do the right thing and the piece quickly? As you can back up, this makes me feel better about myself. Now the person who runs the group also struggles with this. This is absolutely. I also need to learn how to do better for health retreat manager Shona Phillips. An important message for guests is that there is no silver bullet to achieving your wellness goals; After all, we are going to inhale slowly through the left side, but in an era where we have never had so many experts telling us what to do to block out all the noise.

It's actually a good place to start. Were there many people here who came and tried? Do you know a fad diet or do you know a drastic change in your lifestyle and said no? I think I just need to get back to the basics. I definitely think I can. I speak for most of our guests have tried different things to find balance in their lives and there is no quick fix, it's a long game, so they are finding that every day that small change makes a big difference. Hi, I'm Tom Steinfeld, thank you. to watch 60 Minutes Australia, subscribe to our channel now for new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss our bonus minute segments and full 60 minute episodes found on nine now.com and the nine Now app.