Between the moments of waking up and reaching for a morning cup of coffee, it seems like a new trend is coming to the forefront in the wellness world. Whether it’s moon milk, counting macros or drinking a glass of cold lemon-infused water in the morning — there’s always something new on the horizon. And it’s always being covered. It could be said that the wellness world is a bit like a groupie, latching onto one new topic after another, never truly stopping to give its followers time to decide whether this new hip movement is worth the hype.
It could be the ketogenic diet. Or it could be HIIT. These kind of fads and trends go in and out of style as fast as the most recent Macbook drops in price when a new model releases. But is the wellness world actually addicted to trends? Is it even useful to try and keep up?
Trends can be misnomers.
The thing about trends is that they’re only ever present in the eye of the beholder. Obviously the ketogenic diet is very ‘in’ right now because websites like Well & Good and PureWow continue to post recipes and posts on the diet itself. But the second a older diet regains its popularity, like counting macros — it will seem as though the ketogenic diet is out of the picture. But… just as many practitioners of that diet will still be eating and living their lives that way.
What makes the wellness world so susceptible to them is that wellness has moved online. You can hardly have a wellness company or business without having five additional social media accounts to promote yourself. Because of that, the wellness world is constantly competing with itself — trying to find the latest greatest thing to wow their followers and keep their numbers for viewing and sharing high.
What happens when something bad gets picked up?
It’s not as if this hasn’t happened before. Trends like water fasting for example are extremely dangerous and have gone in and out of common culture. Ideas like this are patently unsafe. When the wellness world picks ideas like this up and spreads them around, it can be reminiscent of the Tide Pod scare.
It also begs the question — how much do people trust the websites they follow? Is it healthy for the wellness world to be so dependent on new trends when their follower base is so ardent?
Trends don’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.
On one hand, following trends isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means that more interesting ideas get exposure. Concepts like marco-counting, which used to be confined to the realm of bodybuilders who wanted to make sure they were getting the correct percentage of protein to carbohydrates to sugar, are now much more common. Even something as simple as yoga and pilates didn’t used to have the same kind of popularity that both practices enjoy now.
It is because of this constant search that we have entrepreneurship and the innovation centre that the wellness world represents.
Instead of following the trends, I prefer to pick and choose.
You don’t have to be a trend follower if you don’t want to. My strategy when it comes to following around 100 wellness accounts and blogs is simply to take what I need. Instead of deciding I want to try moon dust, biohacking, kombucha and turmeric just because one website told me they would change everything, I choose to try just one: turmeric. Trying out every trend might actually make you compulsive. So instead of going after everything, choose one or two that you think might be interesting and give it a go. If you like it, great and if not — there’s always the next round.