How can you spot a TikTok wellness scam?
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter! Jupiter!

versus Saturn! It was very well done, that, because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno, and looking at nature's shapes. So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Drinking special tea to make you slimmer. Rubbing bee venom on your face to reduce fine lines and wrinkles. Inserting gemstones into your vagina to regulate your menstrual cycle.

These are just three examples of wellness trends that have little to no scientific evidence to back up their purported claims. Yet people who believe in them, they really believe in them. I want to play you this clip of my sister, Suzanne. Now, for a time, she was guzzling apple cider vinegar because she wanted a bit of a glow up.

I'm Suzanne Adams and I am a recovering fitness addict. Joking, not joking. I was notorious for overtraining. I was also doing fitness competitions and researching and taking every healthy supplement out there.

Thank you, dear sister. So why are we talking about all this? Well, you might have seen a program on Netflix called Apple Cider Vinegar. It's a dramatization of a wellness influencer who lied about having terminal brain cancer, and she claimed that she had cured herself through alternative therapies. That got us thinking about the wellness industry. So on this episode, we're going to peer behind the curtain to find out what it's all about.

Are terms like self-care and wellness just sexier ways of saying health? And are people using those terms to sell us things that we don't really need? We're going to find out. Plus, we're going to tell you how you can identify online wellness scams. I'm William Lee Adams, and this is What in the World from the BBC World Service.

I'm in the studio with Jackie Wakefield. She is the BBC's global disinformation reporter. Jackie, hi. Hey. So before we dive into online wellness scams, and there are a lot of them, I'm hoping we can look at the big picture. How big is the global wellness industry? So the global wellness industry is massive. It's bigger than the pharmaceutical industry. It's worth $6.3 trillion worldwide.

worldwide. And it's growing year on year with more and more people jumping on the trend, trying to cash in. So I can picture what the profile of a fitness influencer might look like. Abs for days, spandex, exercise routines. But what does the profile of a wellness influencer look like? It's really tough because I think this changes year on year depending on the trends. But I think typically the profile is...

normally women, normally younger, normally looking quite thin, fit, have some form of aspirational life that followers might want to copy or get part of that magic that they seem to have.

It's really difficult to say, though, because we sort of associated that like wellness influencer, like the young, beautiful woman who was vegan and did everything right in her lifestyle. But now it's really starting to shift to become anyone, really. Anyone can partake in these trends and anyone can spread misinformation and

profit off them. And anyone, that includes you as well, if I'm not mistaken. Could you tell us about a time in your life you maybe latched onto one of these? Yeah, so I am notorious for latching onto these trends on occasion, which is ironic given my job title. So one that I jumped on was...

So she was really big when I was in high school, so around 2013, 2014. And her thing was eating 40 bananas a day. Did you say 40, four zero? 40, four zero. And that was pretty much all she ate. She was stunning. She was frugivorian, which is like vegetarian, but only eat fruit, abs for days. And I looked at this woman, I was like, 40 bananas is a lot. I'm going to be really full. I like bananas. Let's try it. Man.

My mum, when I asked if I could buy 120 bananas at the supermarket, did not love this request. But she bought me 10. Fair start. I ate three the next day.

Never did it again. Mother was mothering. We should point out, if you eat too many bananas, you can get constipated. You can have too much potassium in your system, which has heart effects. And indeed, you can rot your teeth because it's not good for you. Well, moving steadily along, what makes these trends go viral? What is it that pushes people to click, click, follow? I think

there's a few things that adds to like a viral trend, right? So the first is, is it something simple? Can people remember it? Is it grabby? Like, oh, what a strange trend. What is like the bananas? How odd, like you're going to remember that. They tend to be something that you wouldn't be doing in your ordinary life. So I

It's kind of easy to say like, oh, drink more water or eat a more balanced meal. But a lot of people have kind of tried this before or are already doing it in their life. So it doesn't kind of seem like something you can really easily latch on to. Whereas when you say cut out all carbs, that's like a new thing that you can bring into your life that feels like

you're really changing something. So trends tend to be something that's new, kind of strange sounding, and something that you can easily latch onto that people think may improve their life. Now, we should point out that in terms of the wellness industry, not everything is a scam. As you said up top, it's a massive industry, and there are indeed products that are backed by scientific evidence. My question for you is this, though. Where is the line? When does it become problematic?

It's really tough to draw that line sometimes because you've got most of the trends that I see tend to be kind of in this middle area where they don't work, but they don't cost you money.

So it's not really an issue if people want to try them. It may lead to something. It may make you happier in some way. But it kind of is this middle ground where, oh, it is a lie, but at least there's no direct harm being caused. And then you have the next step, which is selling a product that may not have any harms whatsoever.

costs a lot of money, but also doesn't work. So that's actually ripping people off, really. Then you've got the next step where someone tries a wellness trend or believes in these products so much that they don't then seek mainstream medical care.

That's really problematic because it delays treatment, it can delay prevention, which is really the most important point in medical care, and it can cause people to have a bit of distrust in mainstream medicine and think that this maybe natural solution that an influencer is selling is better than a pharmaceutical or doctor-recommended treatment. And then there's the last step where influencers recommend products or products

So regimes that are actively harmful. So this is when they recommend disordered eating habits or a product that has a high concentration of some chemical or some, I don't know, byproduct that can actually cause harm.

Now, I think it's easy for people to watch this and say, oh, how could people fall for these scams? But the fact is there are a lot of vulnerable people. Perhaps they have consulted a doctor, they haven't found a solution, and they sincerely want that solution. Do you think that plays in to this becoming so popular, this trend taking off? It's so easy to be swept up when you're seeing video after video after video from these beautiful influencers who've changed their lives. Yeah.

And look at that and be like, wow, I want to feel like I want my gut to be healthy. I want my hormones to be balanced. These terms are meaningless. And like gut health, for example, is so complex. An influencer on TikTok is not going to know how to solve it. We talked about aspiration. We talked about people seeking a solution. Are there any other reasons that these online trends go viral, that they're so effective for the influencer in promoting themselves? Yeah.

I think one thing that these viral trends tend to do really well for influencers is to be a successful influencer, you need to kind of have a story. You need to have a character arc. And these kind of wellness trends are a really easy way to create a character arc for yourself. So you could say like,

come with me on my journey to heal my cortisol levels. It's one of those things where, okay, well, now I'm going to tune in and see if this influencer does heal their cortisol. And even if they're doing like completely separate things. So yeah, one trend that people may have seen is cortisol face, which is when there's just like a bit of fat in your face. Everyone has fat in their face. Don't worry. But influencers have kind of tacked onto this insecurity that a lot of people have to, you

to sell regimes or programs to, like, get rid of your cortisol.

In reality, it's not a problem. You're allowed to have fat in your face and the influencer can just lose weight and say, "Oh, I no longer have cortisol face." We've talked about a lot of wellness scams that target women, but we should be clear, men are also following these trends and indeed creating them. Yeah, so women have been really invested in the health and wellness space, but in the last couple of years, we've really seen men being targeted more and more.

What I'm seeing in particular is male influencers who have previously been really gym content or self-improvement, self-help, business style men have slowly been moving to the health and wellness space. I think there's kind of two reasons for that. One, it's a kind of natural fit as men and their audience becoming more and more interested in fitness.

self-improvement, not only in the financial sense, but also in the looks and beauty sense. And the second one is there's a lot of money to be made. It's a huge untapped market. As I said at the start, it's a massive industry wellness and there's so much money to be made, but men haven't really been targeted yet. So we're seeing more and more male influencers selling, you know, wellness protein powders, supplements, wellness regimes, and

really kind of finding a new market with men. Now, Jackie, I want to pause for a second because we've been talking a lot about Western societies, but these wellness trends, they're not unique to any part of the world. In fact, we've reached out to our BBC colleagues around the world to find out the situation where they are. Our first stop is Nigeria. This is Makawachi Okafor. He's a BBC reporter covering health in the Lagos Bureau.

Health awareness camps are very popular in Nigeria. You know, on the streets you see lots of posters and signages advertising and announcing this product. And there are also lots of celebrities and influencers and people who have large following who peddle these messages. For example, you see lots of slimming tea

which experts and health experts have really said that these things don't really help you slim down. They tell you, once you take a gulp of this tea every morning for, say, one month, you're going to lose weight. And there's also things like herbal cure-it-alls, you know, lots of mixtures of herbs which they claim, oh, this can cure HIV, this can cure cancer, this can cure sickle cell anemia. And

There are lots of messages from health experts, even state regulatory bodies saying, "Oh, these things do not work. We do not have any evidence that these things will offer you the value that this will promise that it offers." And then there are also things like unregulated fertility and aphrodisiac products. You know, people and lots of messages online will tell you, "Oh, once you take this or you apply this topically, you're going to get

better in the other room. You know, you're going to be better, your performance is going to be great, it's going to offer you this and that. Part of the reasons why this happens in a country like Nigeria is currently Nigeria is facing very tough economic times and this has affected the cost of drugs. Most people can no longer afford medical products so they are turning to alternative means, unorthodox means and they're looking for ways to take care of their health while they can still, you know, keep the little money that they have. Things like

the cultural background of Nigeria and the religious background, Nigeria being a very conservative country, conversations around sex and fertility and reproductive health isn't what you ideally hear people talk about in the open. So that means because it's very hush-hush, people seek for very secret ways

to address their needs in that sphere. Here is our Watch in the World colleague, Maria Clara Montoya. She's originally from Colombia, and she's been looking into wellness trends in Latin America. Many of the things that we have been looking at in Latin America are focused on well-being, positivity, manifesting, fitness, and financial freedom. There is an infamous case in Brazil where things took a darker path.

Former model Kat Torres turned wellness influencer and self-help guru. Through her platforms, she promised love, money, and the self-esteem that you always dreamed of.

Her audience consisted of mainly women keen on achieving all these goals. But last year, she was sentenced to eight years in prison in Brazil for subjecting a woman to human trafficking and slave labor, and more than 20 women reported being scammed or exploited by her. Thank you, Maria Clara. So that leads us to a big question. How do you spot online wellness scams? So there's a few things that I like to look for. So the first is...

Are they giving you a problem that you don't actually have? I think the cortisol vase is such a good example of that. This is not a real issue. Is it something that you've never thought of before? The next is, is their solution too simple? Is it just cutting out carbs? Is it just taking a gut health drink? Is it just taking a couple vitamins?

If so, it would be much more popular than it is, first of all. Your doctor would recommend it. Usually if it's a really simple solution, it doesn't tend to be something that works. The last thing I really like to look out for is a lot of wellness influencers will say things like, your doctor doesn't want you to know this or they're hiding this from you. It's when you get into those sort of like conspiratorial ways of thinking that once again, it doesn't tend to be true necessarily.

Your doctor isn't hiding the cure from you. They want you to get better. So it's just something to look out for. And then the last one is, are they making money from it? Are they selling your product? If so, just think about that conflict of interest. Jackie Wakefield, thank you so much for explaining that. I have some bananas for you out back. Oh, thank you so much. And thank you for listening to this episode of What in the World from the BBC World Service. I'm William Lee Adams. Bye for now.

Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter versus Saturn! It's very well done, that, because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series, we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno, and looking at nature's shapes. So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.