'Healthmaxxing': Can looking after our bodies go too far?

In the last couple of years, social media has been deluged by an array of viral health trends and wellness hacks, sometimes grouped under the umbrella of “healthmaxxing”.

The aim of these trends is to maximise our health and wellbeing by engaging in lifestyle, dietary, medicinal or other interventions often portrayed as being overlooked by the medical establishment.

These viral trends vary widely. Some focus on radical diets such as “proteinmaxxing” and “fibremaxxing” which encourage disproportionately high (and sometimes exclusive) intake of protein or fibre. Others advocate for a variety of herbal, chemical and pharmacological supplements, such as ashwagandha tablets for stress relief or NAD+ injections marketed for anti-ageing. There are also influential communities that recommend and celebrate major cosmetic surgical interventions such as leg-lengthening to increase people’s heights. The nature of the social media algorithms means that the more extreme and radical a health trend is, the faster and more widely it will probably spread.