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This issue is nothing new. It's always been there. The problem is is that the ability for us to communicate with each other has
Has never been greater
Everybody has the ability to be a publisher
Everybody has the ability to be a content creator and the problem is is that there's very little fact-checking in a lot of information
That gets put out into the public forum
very few
Publishers are willing to offer citations willing to offer
references particularly when we are presented information in
In one minute, two minutes snippets in which we claim that it's about keeping the attention span
But that leads to a host of other problems when most of these publications
are related to
What we should or should not be doing in order to have health or to somehow
Re-establish our health but it's also important to remember that the ability to communicate with each other is
essential if we are attempting to build communities
attempting to have some sort of
Interactions with each other that we would not normally have otherwise
Where we can build positive communities where we can share what we are doing with others
Not in an effort to convey that what we're doing is the best
But to show what is possible
What can we do in order to be healthy even if we aren't experts and that's part of the problem
Are the problem is that we attempt to conflate?
What we see being presented to us in these short snippets in these one minute two minute videos as being truth
without understanding that it might not be true and
So it is important that we take a step back and look at what is being presented to us
and whether or not we are being fed
information
Disinformation or misinformation so let's talk about that warning the following
Presentation contains information that might contradict what you have previously heard or believed to be true about how the human body works and
Can change material that is not suitable for closed-minded individuals?
Enjoy there are billions of tips and suggestions that have been hash tagged within the social media feeds
Over the last few years and it would take us billions of hours to go through each one of those various types of
Presentations as relates to the suggestions that are this is how to be healthy
This is what you should do or should not do. This is what needs to be avoided. This was this is what needs to be
Accentuated within your life in order to be healthy. I think it's better to take a look at okay
Who is actually presenting this information? What are qualifications that we see and
out of all of the various platforms that we
follow
the most often advised
Materials the most often advised suggestions the most often advised
recommendations
the most often advised recommendations for
What nutrition you should have what exercise you should do what supplements are necessary?
what
additive to
What additive is needed to be consumed or needed to be avoided?
tends to come from non-qualified individuals or individuals that do not have
degrees do not have certifications
do not have any type of
standing in their
in their field of
Recommendations that is we're getting recommendations for getting trends that are being established by people who don't have standing
to make the suggestions that they are making
When we look at what's out there about based off of
rudimentary surveys
about
30 of the suggestions come from qualified individuals, which is alarming when we think about
What type of information and what type of disinformation and what type of misinformation?
Might we be subjected to?
within the social media feeds that are going to build
Our ideas and our ideals around what we should be doing should not be doing
in order to establish
or order to reestablish
our overall health
along the same lines
Less than 10% offer a disclaimer very similar to the disclaimer that came in after the intro to this discussion
About what you're being subjected to
What type of evidence is being supported? What type of evidence is being refuted?
There is very little qualifications to the suggestions that are being made whether it is from the
Expert or whether it's from the person who claims to be an expert
There is an over
Emphasis on physique there's an overemphasis on body image
Within the presentations that are being made within the social media
Presentations that lead to other issues that we have seen a rise in over the last few years
That we had started to see a decline in over the last few decades related to
body dysmorphic issues
There are a number of
these
Publications that are focused not on information not on disinformation but on selling products
Somewhere in the neighborhood of about 10%
off of survey data
Are promoting some sort of product that is used in the guise of promoting weight gain or weight loss
most often weight loss
Most of the presentations that we see are going to encourage some some sort of
Or in some part encourage
self diagnosis and self treatment with the understanding that
It is your body you should be using
But it is your body you should know what you are doing most of the advice that we see is coming from people with
lack of qualifications
lack of qualifications that can
Accentuate health issues that someone has because they're being
advised to self diagnose and self treat the overexposure of
of content skews what we understand to be health and what we understand to be healthy in which
most of the presentations
are
under the guise of weight and weight loss as the primary
Factor when it comes to health and being healthy
There is a
viral
epidemic of
misinformation as relates to nutrition and nutritional supplements necessary to to quote maintain
balanced hormones to quote maintain
healthy immunity to quote assist with sleep
There are a number that are following the misguided notion
That body image and body morphology somehow is the indication of your metabolic rate
There are various trends out there that can lead to
consumption of foods that are known to have
That are known to be toxic when taken in
high amounts there are
Trends that are not new that we have unfortunately had exposure to
since the early 2000s based off of
Hollywood
personalities
personalities that students would recall I would label as doctor actor or doctor actress in the guise of under underlying
The fact that we're being pitched
information from people who may not have
The knowledge to pitch that information
personalities that would providing their
individual statements their
Wanting us to have this sort of product
be
the
best thing you can do for your health but is simply being promoted in an effort to
Allow that hollywood personality to make money a trend that has expanded so that
The mom at home or the dad at home or the teenager at home
Now has the same platform that these hollywood stars
Had in terms of trying to pitch distinct products once again
under the guise of trying to make
a buck in order to sell a product to the viewer
There are dangerous eating trends that come about
such as prolonged fasting periods
such as doing water fasts such as doing
milk fasts such as
consuming mushroom coffees
that have very little scientific backing to what is being
Presented not only is there very little scientific evidence backing what is being presented
a lot of what is being purported as coming from the
Fasts from the various diets that are being presented a lot of the claims of benefit
Are actually refuted within the scientific literature. Not only are they refuted
They've been shown to have deleterious health effects
If followed for prolonged periods of time when we start looking at recommendations being made as relates to diet and exercise
the
presentation of information
Establishes and emphasizes the need to have some sort of quote unquote lean physique a physique
that most individuals
May not be able to obtain
that lead to
poor goal setting
And the aversion in the long term to exercise to physical activity
into nutrition that can promote healthiness
Because of adverse effects they get that come from poorly developed and misguided
nutritional programs and exercise regimens
and
while I promised myself that I wouldn't go out and
intentionally label distinct
trends and distinct tik tok themes
Within this I want to try to keep more general. I think it's important to actually point out a few of the various
Viral trends that fit into this highly deleterious
effect on overall health
And so i'm going to name just a few of the trends here before we get into what we can do in order to combat
a lot of the misinformation
disinformation
and
perpetuation of myths
within the various trends that are out there and so the
Kind of prominent trends that we have seen over the last few years take off include things like the the water talk movement
Include things like the what I eat in a day videos
things like the water similar to the lettuce water
and the drinking of chlorophyll the
use of
dry
pre-workout mixtures the consumption of
mushrooms in coffee form
That is just a few of the various
trends that we've seen
that have taken over
We also have things like the uh, the quote-unquote budget ozempic which is the indication that there is some
Dietary supplement that will mimic the effects pharmacologically that we get from ozempic
There is within this kind of movement
a general idea that we have
distinct benefits that come about from
Taking the supplements from following these dietary trends
from
the
various types of
Exercise regimens that are out there which includes like the the walking. I believe the hot girl walk
trend that is
within the
within the tic-tac algorithm
But all of them tend to have the same grounding effect within them and the grounding effect within them is the misapplication of scientific principles
The idea that if you can consume this one thing is somehow going to cure everything for you the the cure-all
The the cure-all we have previously discussed the cure-all issues
we have
written about the cure-all issues in numbers and numbers of
Publications we have discussed the cure-alls in a number of publications
The problem with
the cure-alls the problem with the
idea that this one thing
This simple change that you can make is somehow going to lead to you becoming healthy
is a misapplication of the science is a
false
ideal about
how the human body works as
We discussed on the
Talk relating to
dairy products and
milk and butter issues the
The idea that we have somehow
One thing that we can do that is going to
be
the
Thing that's going to make us healthy
Misunderstands the fact that the body itself is very complex and because the body itself is very complex
we get an inability to have sometimes simple answers and sometimes
We want simple answers because simple answers make us feel good
Simple answers are easy to understand put quotes around that
But we need to take into account is the fact that our body is a rube goldberg. It's something that is
excessively complex in order to do
fundamentally simple things
And it's excessively complex because of a number of regulatory
factors and regulatory features that come into play in an attempt to
Maintain what the body needs in order to survive what we reference as homo stasis
Which is really the idea that we need to have everything in certain harmony in order to optimally perform
And that optimal performance is based off of what we establish as our
need to optimally perform
And this takes us into the discussion or the second part of this discussion
with okay, what is
Scientific literacy what is nutrition literacy what is
Health and medical literacy
And why is it important so that we can weed through all of the information that is being presented to us
And it starts with understanding one thing about the body and one thing about the body that we tend not to see being presented
within all of the social media feeds
Is the fact that our body is established in such a way that we're able to
Optimally perform in the conditions that we are being subjected to
And the way in which the body is able to often perform is based off of feeling
and the way in which the body is able to perform is based off of feedback mechanisms that are
Established in such a way as to keep everything in balance to keep
us in the
grounded effect of optimal performance
And optimal performance is going to vary based off of what i'm being asked to do
And what i'm asking the body to do
Is to determine factors that come from inside the body
As well as factors that get imposed on the body
And so this internal external
Stress this internal external demand that we place in the body is going to dictate what the body needs in order to optimally perform
And when we start looking at a lot of these trends that we see within the social media feeds
The trends that we see are based not on what we would
Expect within a normal population
But what the individual who is presenting the information
Has seen within their own
Experiences
In their own responses to those internal external stresses what the person has seen
with their own
homeostatic regulations their own feedback mechanisms
And so when we start looking at this feedback mechanism's ability to optimally perform
What is scientific literacy? What is nutrition literacy? What is health literacy?
Going to allow me to understand about this
So when we start to start talking about scientific literacy
What we're really
Discussing here is the ability to understand the scientific method
And what is scientific consensus?
And when we start looking at this scientific consensus and the scientific method
it boils down to
What is being presented? Is it an inductively inferred conclusion?
That is a conclude that is a statement an explanation
that is based off of
Empirical evidence that is related to the fundamental principles the fundamental theories
and the fundamental laws of
science
Or is it a deductively reasoned
Explanation based off of
preconceived knowledge or pre-know knowledge
In an attempt to explain an observation, that's the hypothesis
When we start looking at consensus we start trying to say okay, what does science say about
the phenomenon? What does science say about
Doing this type of exercise following this type of diet doing this type of
eating pattern
drinking these beverages
sleeping in this fashion
What does science say? When we say what does science say?
We're not looking at fundamental principles. We're not looking at
Fundamental laws per se what we're what we're looking at instead is what is the consensus of the empirical evidence?
In science the laws and the theories are the
guiding principles
That explain why science is occurring why the phenomenon occurs
And it's our rationale that we fall on
in order to provide an explanation
within our explanation
through inductive reasoning
Where we're going to take what we see in an experiment
and place it into
What is the overwhelming understanding of the phenomenon?
Do the empirical observations that we get from our experiment
agree or disagree
with
the previously established
understandings that have come from previous experimentations
When we do multiple experimentations that all point to the same inference the same
inductively inferred conclusion
Then the consensus is this is true. This is what is factually correct
It is not an opinion. It is not a guess
It is not a poll. It is not a vote. It is not a
democratically
selected
option a scientific consensus is where we get
the
overwhelming majority of evidence all pointing to
This one phenomenon being correct this one explanation to the phenomenon
Being correct and so when we start talking about okay being scientifically literate what it means is understanding
What is the scientific principles?
What is the scientific methods that are followed that allow for us?
to develop
The consensus about how the human body works how health is developed
And how to be healthy which takes us into the next bit of literacy that we have to look at
And the next bit of literacy that we have to look at is nutritional literacy when we start looking at nutritional literacy
one of the things we have to look at is the fact that
calories are not the end-all be-all when it comes to nutrition while a lot of dietary recommendations
and a lot of dietary
storytelling is based off of
calories and caloric balances
Calories and caloric balances are the most important things
calories and caloric balances
energy intake and energy expenditure
Is not what nutrition is
nutrition is
what type of molecules are necessary in order to
perform the metabolism the chemical reactions that are necessary in order to
Maintain the optimal performance that is necessary for the body
If we look at a lot of the social media trends as it relates to nutrition a lot of the social media trends that relate to nutrition
Do not focus on the nutrition as it is for optimal performance
But the nutrition as to what the person hopes it is or the nutrition based off of how many calories
Am I consuming in a day? And so we start looking at nutrition literacy what we have to look at is okay
How many macronutrients do I need?
For my body and this is where we have to look at the breakdown of
carbohydrates proteins
and lipids based off of grams to be consumed
per kilogram or per pound of body mass
but along with that the quality of
the various quantifications of
Carbohydrates lipids and proteins being consumed within a day
Not all carbohydrates are the same
Not all lipids are the same
Not all proteins are the same
This is where we have to look at. Okay, what type of carbohydrates are being consumed along with the fact that consumption of carbohydrates?
Does not cause the spikes that are alleged to occur
That we see within a lot of the social media trends
related to nutrition are the carbohydrates going to be used for distinct types of metabolic processes
What type of fats are being consumed? What type of lipids are being consumed?
Are these lipids necessary for metabolic processes? Are these the essential?
Fatty acids the essential fats the essential lipids that I need
In order to have proper metabolic functions in order to build the cells that I need to build
In order to maintain the tissues that need to maintain in order to build the hormones that I need to build
When we look at the proteins, am I getting the essential amino acids that I need?
Am I getting the branched chain amino acids that I need? Am I getting
The proper amount of sulfur? Am I getting the proper amount of nitrogen?
Am I getting the creatine that I need? Am I getting the taurine that I need?
All of these are important in understanding what is being presented within the social media stories
about nutrition
If we look at a lot of what's being presented within the social media feeds as relates to nutrition
It is boiling down to how many calories am I eating?
But I can get calories from anything. It's calories just a unit of energy. It's a unit of heat to be specific
But it's simply a unit of energy. It's not a mass
It's not weight that can be added or subtracted
The only thing we can add and subtract in terms of mass is mass
Weight leads to weight. Calories do not lead to weight
The last thing we have to look at in terms of the literacy issues is the medical and health literacy issues
And the medical and health literacy issues is understanding what is health, what is healthy
How is health developed? How is being healthy
Developed and how is health and being healthy undermined by what I do?
By my genes, by my environment
By my hormones and this is where we have to look at. Okay that complexity of the body
Health literacy is understanding that
Health comes about through a complex interaction of factors
Factors that influence my ability to have optimal performance
The ability to have all of the systems of my body
Function in unison with each other to allow me to optimally perform to the best of my ability
Given the scenarios that I have to face and the stresses that I'm encountering
That include things that I do
My lifestyle, things that I'm born with, my genes
Things that I'm taught about how to do my social and my familial background
Things that are happening in my life, things that are happening in my life
My familial background, things that are happening within my body, my hormone regulations
Complex factors and complex interactions that minimize the ability to have a simple
Single factor be the cure for anything and everything that I face in terms of my health
Which remembers that health is the ability to have and maintain the optimal performance for the body
In all scenarios, under all stresses
Due to the complex interaction of all of those factors
Where we get pitched distinct single item things
Somehow will influence all of this complexity
That does not hold true when we start to break down
And look at all of the individual components of my health
And so when we start talking about health and medical literacy
What we're talking about is the understanding of how the human body actually functions
In order to get this medical and health literacy
We have to have a scientific literacy
And we have to have a nutrition literacy
We have to have an understanding of the basic principles of science
The basic principles of human physiology
The basic principles of nutrition
So that we're able to grasp what is taking place within my body
This is where we have to be able to work through information in a logical sense
Even if that information does not agree with my preconceived notions
Or what I hope is true
We have to look at what does the evidence say
And where does the evidence take me in terms of what is true versus what is false
Something that most of the social media trends and most of the social media posts fail to address
When we start looking at these literacies
It's going to involve the interactions in a holistic approach with our primary care providers
In an attempt to develop a treatment if we happen to need treatment
Or a prevention plan so as to not allow the necessity for diseases
To not allow for the need to have a treatment to any of the non-communicable diseases
That plague our health care system currently
Thanks for listening, like I said I didn't want to go into any of the specific trends that are out there
But we will do some discussions with some of the students as relates to specific trends
And specific questions they have about some of the trends that are out there
And how some of the trends can lead to health issues in future talks
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