Health and wellness has quickly grown to be hot topic in recent years, with popular Instagrammers preaching self care and YouTubers documenting their wellbeing routines. Taking care of your body and putting health first is now the cool thing to do, which we absolutely love! And while the internet has been an amazing resource for building a community of knowledge and “health-minded” people, it’s also created an environment that makes it hard to sort out what’s truly good for us and what’s simply another product or ploy being fed to us for profit.
Advertising for goods and services is as old as civilization itself. Ancient Egyptians used papyrus to make messages for sales and specialty goods and Europeans began using rudimentary logos to promote their businesses during the Middle Ages. But it wasn’t really until the beginning of the 20th century that advertising became a complex machine, playing to people’s desires and dreams of a perfect and luxurious life. While commercials, magazine spreads and billboards still play a large role in advertising, social media has become one of the biggest advertising platforms.
Open up your Instagram account and it won’t take long before you find yourself looking at a #sponsored #ad, and there’s a reason for that. Promoting goods on social media via “influencers” works. In fact, a survey conducted in 2017 found that after viewing an ad or sponsored post on Instagram, a whopping 75% of viewers were inspired to purchase said item in the advertisement. With nearly 800 million users, that’s a pretty good business plan depending on how many people your ad reaches. And that’s where the health and wellness trend comes into play.
Historically, advertisements haven’t always promoted the healthiest products…but they sure do make them look good.
When you follow fitness, diet, health and wellness accounts, you may not realize that a lot of the products those Instagrammers are promoting are items that they’re being paid to promote. In fact, many of these items aren’t even used by the person themselves. Nowadays, social media influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers can make a living partnering up with companies to promote products. Most of these partnerships work on a pay per post basis and can range anywhere from $40 for a sponsored post to nearly $200,000 for a single post, depending on your social media prowess. And on top of that, many influencers are given discount codes that they share with their followers to encourage their followers to buy a product, but what isn’t disclosed is the fact that the influencer tends to get a percentage of every sale that uses that code.
So what does this have to do with health and wellness? Because this type of advertising is still so new, disclosure can be a little bit shady. Scrolling through Instagram unaware to how these #ad schemes work leaves a lot of us vulnerable to purchasing “healthy” products because we see someone who is super fit, active and healthy promoting them. Some great examples include weight loss and detox teas, waist shapers, any teeth whitening product, protein powders, vitamins, supplements, and even foods that may seem super healthy like granola bars and shakes. The fact is, most of these products don’t lead to overall health and most of them have very little research done on them in the first place meaning that they could actually be detrimental rather than beneficial.
It’s important to use social media with a critical eye and do your research when it comes to health and wellness trends that you constantly see popping up around the internet world. The first and most important thing to do is look for the #ad or #sponsored hashtags. Those are the first tell tale signs that whoever is promoting the product is being paid to do so and odds are they don’t really use or back the product themselves. Another red flag is seeing the same product promoted all over everyones’ accounts. That’s a great indicator that a product is targeting social media influencers because they know they can sell a product that way that wouldn’t sell otherwise. In the end, the best way to avoid bogus health and wellness trends is to take a step back and think about whether the product really promotes long-term health or acts as more of a quick fix. The best way to achieve a happy and healthy body is to change your lifestyle. That includes eating better, getting more sleep, staying active, taking time away from technology, and using your critical thinking skills when you do decide to scroll through social media. Do your research and don’t be so quick to fall victim to the latest health and wellness trends!
