You should be drinking celery juice every morning. You must avoid dairy at all costs, but if you want to make your coffee healthier, you should put a spoonful of butter into it. Fruit should be the majority of your diet, but carbs are evil and will cause you health problems. You should go keto if you want to lose weight, but eating foods with a lot of fat is dangerous. You should be using essential oils every day, but the only way you can truly be healthy inside and out is if you have the proper crystals displayed around your home.
When it comes to what is actually healthy, there’s a lot of contradictory information floating around out there. So how are we to know what is safe and what isn’t? After all, some doctors used to recommend smoking cigarettes less than a hundred years ago.
One curious Reddit user recently asked, “What’s something most people think is healthy today that future people will shake their heads at?”, and thousands of people called out common dietary advice, lifestyle practices and habits in the replies. Below, we’ve gathered some of their most thought-provoking responses, so be sure to upvote the things you are wary of as well. Then let us know in the comments what else you think will be viewed as unhealthy in the future, and if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article debunking food and nutrition myths, you can find that right here.
#1
Not vaccinating your children. Where the hell did this trend come from? It's so dangerous and re-inviting deadly diseases like measles back into our society.
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352points
#2
The hustle culture. Not everything you do needs to make money. You should be able to have hobbies that stay just that: hobbies.
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239points
#3
Indoctrinating children to religion before they’re old enough to use abstract reasoning and decide for themselves
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229points
#5
There's been a really weird trend of people drinking "alkaline water" that has a pH of 9.5 or some s**t. Here's the truth about it: the second it comes in contact with your stomach acid, it's not gonna be alkaline anymore. The pH of your body is most likely fine, and if it actually isn't, you should be in an emergency room instead of listening to some snake oil salesman
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225points
#6
A part of "fat acceptance." While, of course, everyone deserves respect, regardless of size, the idea that being very overweight is a healthful lifestyle, is just wrong. Sure, most of the bodily harm of obesity won't catch up to you, until later in life. But it WILL catch up to you. I've been overweight most of my life. While I'm generally healthy, my knees have paid the price, of supporting the extra poundage. Don't fool yourself into thinking you'll escape the bodily harm of long term obesity.
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223points
#8
Exposing your children all over social media.
206points
#9
40 hour work week with generally unfulfilling jobs. Source: I'm a clinical psychologist.
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196points
#10
Vaping instead of smoking. You're still filling your lungs with stuff that shouldn't be there in the end. Looks like more research is coming out about the risks too. It's not as bad as smoking, but it's got its own issues. It's fine if you're using vapes and e-cigs to quit smoking, but it's gone beyond that for quite some time now. Many people just exchanged one habit for the other.
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189points
#13
Cooking things in plastic, eating and drinking things out of plastic.
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152points
#14
Very short video formats (TikTok, Instagram stories, YouTube shorts) and their impact on our attention span
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149points
#15
Energy drinks - I'll be amazed if there aren't some long term effects of drinking can after can of Red Bull/Monster etc
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146points
#16
From a doctor’s perspective, half of the US health food industry is absolute garbage.
1. Supplements. What’s in them? They aren’t regulated, so anything could be! Many studies have found a lack of actual advertised product at best, harmless filler such as saw dust commonly, and heavy metal and other toxin contamination such as lead and arsenic at worst. All for the cheap price of $$$$$ and your health. Is it possible that some could be helpful for specific things? Yup! But are most things on the shelf going to fit in that category? Absolutely not, no.
2. Most “diet” plans/snacks/products. Low in fat but high in sugar? Serving size of 1/4 of what is sold? Contains some mysterious fruit “scientifically shown” to combat the laws of physics? A laxative in disguise? Most of these plans are just like get rich quick schemes. They are sold to provide a quick path to a healthier and better life. But diet isn’t a quick fix. It’s a slow combination of everyday habits. Diet culture is a toxic scam and their advertisements are sickening both for the lies commonly told and the mental health toll on the targeted audience. Hell, most of the “good choice” food items at the grocery could be considered unhealthy processed garbage.
3. Fruit juice. Despite what Steve Jobs believed, fruit juices are pure sugar in a glass. Calories with limited nutrient content and a high glycemic load.
4. The way we teach physical activity. We use sports as a competition and filter kids out, only supporting the best of the best financially and through school programs. But the reality is that team and club sports can keep people active and engaged in their communities for life. This is healthy. If we can foster low-level skill sports for everyone we will have healthier and happier communities. Except for maybe American football. That s**t will give you brain injuries.
144points
#18
I already believe that the majority of fitness influencers would benefit from counselling rather than advising followers on Instagram, so that's undoubtedly the case.
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136points
#20
Essential Oils. Lots of silly pseudoscience. And it’s probably pretty unhealthy to breath in aerosolized droplets of oil.
128points