Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
The Fabulous Fabrications of Fitfluencers
Ever wondered if your favorite fitness influencer is more interested in your wallet than your well-being? Join us as we humorously dissect the world of "fitfluencers" with your hosts, Lindsay McClain and Christopher Patchet, LCSW. Our mission? To help you sift through the glossy promises and algorithm-driven content that bombard our screens. We're taking a historical stroll to uncover how fitness went from being a natural part of life to the marketing behemoth it is today. Spoiler alert: It's not all kale smoothies and yoga selfies!
Our exploration kicks off with a little history lesson, tracing back to the early fitness gurus like Bernard McFadden and Charles Atlas. These trailblazers were selling supplements and advice long before Instagram's filters were even a twinkle in a developer's eye. Fast forward to today, and many modern "fitfluencers" continue this tradition, often promoting products without much regulation. By reflecting on the past, we aim to equip you with the knowledge to question the legitimacy and safety of what we're being sold in the name of health.
Manipulation isn't just for magicians and politicians—it's a staple in the fitfluencing world. We'll unravel the art of visual trickery, from strategic angles and lighting to more sophisticated filters and editing tools. Whether it's the iconic MySpace angles or Chloe Ting's catchy workout titles, there's a method to the madness. But fear not! With a touch of humor and a dash of skepticism, we're here to arm you with critical thinking skills to navigate the often deceptive landscape of fitness advice. So, buckle up and prepare for a lively ride through the world of fitness fads, scams, and everything in between!
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people into their simplest ingredients. I'm your host for this week, lindsay McLean, and with me is my co-host.
Speaker 2:Christopher Patchett, LCSW.
Speaker 1:Let me set the scene for you. You're scrolling Instagram or TikTok or YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels or Facebook, or it doesn't matter where you're. Yep, you're scrolling through and there you see it, and through, and there you see it. It's a young, fit male. He's topless, showing off his muscles. Or maybe it's a young, fit female and she's in a matching two-piece pastel bra and leggings set. They're in the gym and they're telling you. Usually it's written on the screen, or maybe they're kind of shouting it at you with excitement. Before you can scroll away, they hit you with their first attack Do these three exercises to get ripped. Or these three exercises will get rid of your mom pooch. They'll boost your energy and they'll snatch your waist. Rid of your mom pooch, they'll boost your energy and they'll snatch your waist. Or my Pilates instructor always has us do these three exercises to get the fat burning going. Now you scroll away because you're smart, but you're not safe. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:The algorithm has seen that you watch that video and it has seen that you want more. You were curious enough to stay just long enough to be like what are these three exercises? What are they? I'm just, I'm curious. No, I'm not interested. No, no, you were interested.
Speaker 1:The algorithm saw, and, before you know it, your feed is filled to the brim with all of these fit people working out or wearing oversized headphones. All the exercises look vaguely the same, but they all have these different names and they all target your deepest insecurities. So you keep watching because they keep coming up. You're curious, you know, since it's not that harmful, right? But again, joke's on you because the fit flinter, which is who you have stumbled upon, has lured you in and now they're going to pounce and make their kill. So at some point, one of these videos, one of these cute little videos that you're watching, with three exercises, do these three reps, whatever they're going to hit you with the.
Speaker 1:I make sure I stay in the best shape of my life by always starting my workout with a scoop of powder from XYZ, who they're the sponsor of today's video. I'm just such a fan of theirs, but thank you so much to XYZ company for sponsoring it. I can't, you know, get out of bed in the morning without this. This really gets my exercise program going. This gets the fat burning. You've seen this before.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I have.
Speaker 1:Yep. So that night you fall for it because you're like, again, it's not that big of a deal, it can't be that big of a problem. It's not that expensive. It's $9.99 plus shipping and tax. That big of a problem, it's not that expensive, it's $9.99 plus shipping and tax. Like, I can try this Sure. So yeah, that night, while you make your little purchase, the Fitfluencer feasts well and they are able to pay their social media team to keep adding filters to all their videos. They're able to pay their personal coach to actually come up with exercises that keep them fit. They're able to pay their makeup artist to airbrush their abs, boobs, whatever, before each take, while you're over there coughing down a supplement that the FDA has no jurisdiction over. Welcome to the world of fitfluencing. Oh boy, now if you're asking yourself, you're like wow, you guys really hate on influencers. You've hated on general on influencers. You've hated on like general influencers. You've hated on mom fluencers. You're here hating on fit fluencers. That is correct. I do hate them, and you should too.
Speaker 2:I'm not even gonna try and hide it and be like no, no, I hate influencing, I hate influencers, just straight up you know, I never like, actually took the time to think about if I hate them or like them, and I think that, yeah, we'll definitely kind of go into that here. But yes, go on.
Speaker 1:I mean, I never really thought about it even until I was writing this episode and I was, like, I've said the word fluencer so many times within the past couple of months and none of it has been good. So fitfluencing is not new by any means. This has been around since the idea of exercising to work out became a thing which is actually kind of a relatively new phenomenon within the space of humanity, which makes sense, because for most of humanity you did manual labor. Maybe you were training to be a soldier or something else, but that was included in that. You didn't have kings who were sitting there like, yeah, I'm a lift weights. That that didn't exist.
Speaker 2:Or even further back. You were running from tigers and that's how you got your cardio in.
Speaker 1:Exactly. No one was like planning. They're like right, so I'm going to at 3 PM. Guys, let's meet up near the tiger den, and you know, Gronk is going to like wake them up and then we get our little run in. Okay, let's go.
Speaker 2:You know what I would love to see like? I wonder if there ever was a time where they were like that. They're like me, belly getting big. Me must work out Me. Wake up, tiger to run.
Speaker 1:Every day this week me wake up, tiger. We'll never know, but I'd like to believe that that that is what happened. We really don't see until the, the late 1800s, which does kind of make sense because that's when you have a time in history where you've got people who were maybe working suddenly had a group of people who may be working more sedentary jobs, who are like, oh, I'm supposed to be a manly man, I should somehow do that, but how? And you see this kind of rise in bodybuilding that starts around that time and basically as soon as that appeared, the bullshit appeared too. I mean, the bullshit was there before, like nutritional bullshit, like doctors who were not actually doctors. That has always existed Bad nutritional advice.
Speaker 1:But we see the two kind of get connected late 1800s, and the father of all of this that you'll typically see is Bernard McFadden. He was very active in the late 1800s and early to mid-1900s, I believe until up about 1950. He invented the tabloid magazine, which should tell you something, and he also became famous for railing against various health trends like doctors and gluttony. Both of these bad Doctors, bad gluttony, bad, same bullshit.
Speaker 2:Okay, both of these bad doctors, bad gluttony, bad, same same bullshit okay, yeah, don't, don't.
Speaker 1:Don't ask yourself too many questions about that one. He also claimed that prolonged fasting would help you live to the age of 150, which he didn't live to 150, so I I'm not sure what was going on there. He definitely got some flack for some of this at the time, but not enough, because his prodigy came along, charles Atlas. He was active from about the 1920s up to about 1970, and he focused on how to exercise to become a real man. He focused on how to exercise to become a real man. One of the ads that he ran at one point read I can make you a new man too, and only 15 minutes a day. And if that does not sound like something you would see on Instagram today, just 15 minutes a day do my exercises.
Speaker 1:So there was him. There's also Bob Hoffman, who hosted the first weightlifting competition in the US in 1924, who then moved on to selling really bizarre supplements that he got busted for like for decades. Jack LaLanne, who had the longest running TV exercise program in US history. That started in 1953. He also then moved into selling vitamins in a juicer. So you see, there's been a history of this for a long time of like work out, get famous, sell crap.
Speaker 2:Every time I think of Jack Lewine, I think of eyebrows, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yep, apparently the juicer that he created is like still being sold today. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, I mean, the juicer that he created is like still still being sold today.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the juice is fine, but you know, it's one of those things where you're like okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you think about it fast enough, then it does sound Latin. You know, you take fruits and vegetables and you throw it into a machine and okay, yeah, that that's that's good. Yeah, get your fruits and veggies but yeah, at the moment that you really start thinking about everything that's being taken away from it, then yeah, so then we get into more kind of names that I believe a modern audience might know Jane Fonda, richard Simmons.
Speaker 1:You know, we all kind of have heard about these people in one way or another. The idea of like Jazzercise, which actually has been around since 1969. Oh wow, I did not know that. I associate Jazzercise with like 80s and 90s, 70s. I did not place it at all, but it was there. And that's not to say that these things are all 100% toxic, but you see these kinds of ideas of like ooh, there's this one person who appears and is telling you like do this exercise, buy my program, buy my vitamins, eat this, I wear that and look at how good I look. All of these people have that in common and that has carried through. That unfortunate line has carried through in today's fitfluencers. We're still doing it, we're still pushing crazy stuff.
Speaker 2:Still pushing crazy stuff. But you know, at least back in the day it was how you were kind of saying where you started off as a fifth fluencer.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you progressed to selling shitty things. Now we just combine the two.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, exactly. And I do give a little more credit to the people who started off actually as a weightlifter, as a bodybuilder, as a whatever, and then they were like, oh, maybe this is really hard on my body, I need to make money somehow else and I have all this fame, so what do I do? I sell these other things. It's not right, but it's understandable and you're right. Today it's just like same time and the whole thing is a lie. We'll get into that, don't you worry. The first thing I want to pick apart are the supplements that you'll get. So we talked about this person who starts off and is like I always, you know, before I work out, I add a scoop of this to my protein shake, or I always have my protein shake. I start off my morning with. There's one company, ag1. I see them mentioned frequently. They frequently sponsor people and have never tried. It cannot comment on it, not judging them as a company, of course. So the thing to note when you see these people who are pushing a supplement being like, oh, company, of course. So the thing to note when you see these people who are pushing a supplement being like, oh, you should take this, it's got all these vitamins and minerals and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:The FDA regulates dietary supplements, which includes vitamins, differently from regular food and drugs, and that means that they actually don't regulate them. According to the FDAgov, and I quote, manufacturers and distributors of dietary supplements and dietary ingredients are prohibited from marketing products that are adulterated or misbranded. That's it. They are not checking. Now you cannot make wild claims on there. A lot of companies still kind will, but you're, you're not really supposed to. But the fda is not checking to make sure that if you say this pill has green tea and caffeine and this and that, and they're not actually checking to make sure that pill has those things.
Speaker 2:I do know, like I have seen where on the bottle will say I have like a review of it, and then underneath it will say something along the lines these statements have not been reviewed by the FDA.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yep, yep, yeah, and you know, if you were to buy other food or drugs like if you were to buy some sort of medicine again in the US, the FDA is in charge of that and they're the ones making sure that your aspirin doesn't have fentanyl in it. Just we like that, we like that it has. You know the ingredients it's supposed to and obviously like mistakes happen and people get busted. But just be aware that vitamins are not regulated at all. So you should be hyper aware of anyone trying to get you to take a supplement of any sort, because, again, no one is checking what is in that supplement that this fitfluencer is trying to sell you.
Speaker 2:I figured with supplements, I didn't think vitamins, I figured.
Speaker 1:Yeah, vitamins are actually included in that. I mean, obviously there are reasons why you might want to take a vitamin, but in general, if you are a healthy enough adult eating a semi-balanced diet, unless you have been tested by a doctor and have been diagnosed with a vitamin deficiency, you don't need to be taking vitamins, even vitamin D. Did you know? In the UK, which is famous for its warm, sunny weather, they did a study that, if you're, that's valid. That's important here, because if you are, if you have pale skin, if you spend 10 to 15 minutes a day between April and September outside around midday, that is enough vitamin D for the year. This was in the UK.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So again, if you're an adult, you're eating a decently healthy diet. You are going outside. You're spending time outside. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot of food. You're eating a lot.
Speaker 1:You're probably not vitamin D deficient. You're probably not anything vitamin deficient, again, unless you've been diagnosed. So taking vitamins will not help. You don't need it.
Speaker 1:The other thing you have to be aware of with these you know vitamins and supplements and what I eat in a day videos. These people are pushing at you because they're not sharing, because sharing is caring right like they want you to come join their side. Come, come, eat like I do. Come, do all the things. Because if you're eating like I do, then if I kind of add in a little and I always take this vitamin, you're going to be more likely to be like I should take that vitamin too.
Speaker 1:But just just think about that when you're watching those videos. Are you that person? Do you have their metabolism? Do you exercise like they do? There are so many questions here that we may look the same, but there's a lot else that goes on beneath the surface. That means that you are eating a significantly higher amount or a lower amount of whatever than I should be eating.
Speaker 1:Do not take dietary advice from people on the internet and also on that note 1200 calories a day is starving yourself. Don't do that. If you starve yourself, you are not only going to not lose weight faster, you will fuck up your metabolism permanently. Don't do it. The other, the final thing that you'll see for fitfluencers when they're talking about food and vitamins and stuff like that, when they're kind of getting into the woo-woo wellness influencer territory, they'll try and tell you that you need to flush toxins from your system. So you need to be eating all these things, and this smoothie really helps you flush toxins. Did you know Patches? Did you know that your body has a secret hack for flushing toxins out?
Speaker 2:Poop.
Speaker 1:Close Peeing out Poop. Close Peeing it's a really good job of filtering out the toxins and being like whoop out you go. But pooping, yes, we can get toxins out that way too. Your body is great at it. Your body wants you to stay alive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But getting off my supplement soapbox for the moment. Getting back to the exercise portion of Fitfluencers, you may have noticed when I was giving the examples that all of them they always say it's always three exercises. These three things, these magic three exercises and these magical three exercises are going to do three things to you. You're going to have three effects. This is not a fairy tale, okay. You are not a character in a Sarah J Maas fairy smut book where the power of three is going to make you hot and get you like sexy fairy Batman. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I get it. The human brain likes the number three. It easy to deal with, it's cute. We see it all the time in stories like in history. We just we really like it. We like it mathematically, little triangles like. But it doesn't apply to exercise schoolhouse rock even said three is a magic number yeah, although there was a game we used to play at camp called four is the magic number, because four is four is four is four. I'll. I'll show you another time. I'm not gonna play it with you here and embarrass you and myself probably.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that is a dead giveaway if you see someone who's just like three exercises, three positive effects from doing these three exercises. No, no, just three exercises. That's all it takes.
Speaker 2:You know, I've I've always been skeptical when it comes to uh, because there's always either three or one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, there's one simple trick, or these three simple things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. You should be skeptical, because life doesn't work like that. That's the thing that we as humans have created, that we like this idea. But your life doesn't need to revolve around the number three and it shouldn't revolve around the number three. And so when you see this popping up over and over and over again, it is a dead giveaway that these have been just like.
Speaker 1:These have been copy pasted from somewhere else, and people are just kind of like putting the script over the video to get you to watch and click, and there's a whole scheme I don't know if that's the right word, but you will see really similar videos and text that appear just kind of like all at once, like a whole bunch of videos will be made about this and people will then kind of copy them and spread it, but they are predominantly being put out by pages that are just here to sell you supplements.
Speaker 1:They just want you to watch this video and then, because you've watched it, the algorithm is like you want to see more, and so eventually you watch enough, you like enough, because you're like it's just three exercises, I can add this into my routine. Okay, maybe it's not going to snatch my waist and get rid of my mom pooch. But yeah, I can add this in Wrong, don't do it, because the next video is going to be a supplement video. So finally, you've gotten rid of all of these Fitfluencers selling you supplements. You keep telling Instagram no, I'm not interested in this person. You've gotten rid of all the ones with the terrible dieting advice because, don't forget, dieting fails an astonishingly high percentage of the time, and it's not your fault. Your body is just not made to do that. So most people like if somebody goes on an extreme diet, they may lose weight initially, but unless you stick to that permanently for the rest of your life, like, the weight will come back Cause your body doesn't want to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and and being a bigger guy myself, like one of the things I do see often is the fat guy who is on the losing 200 pounds and everything and and you'll see, like you know, like them you know, losing the weight and everything, and then it kind of seems that the videos kind of stop once they lose the weight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Because you have to keep up what you did to get there. You don't get to just like go back to like add some stuff back in again, because then the weight will come back on again. There are people who manage to, but in most cases it's not viable. So anybody who's also selling you a diet run, run away from them. So you've gotten rid of those people. You know that's fake because you listen to our show and you believe everything we say, as you should. But you're still not safe because you have one more boss. You have to beat One more fit fluencing boss.
Speaker 2:Molly.
Speaker 1:Filters worse than Molly. I like how you wish it was Molly.
Speaker 2:As soon as I said her name, she's, she's. She's now giving me a pissy look, because I woke her up.
Speaker 1:How dare you? And you're not going to give her treats. She had enough treats earlier. I witnessed it. So let's not forget that in today's age, 2025, you can put filter on or filters on moving bodies and videos, and you've been able to do this for years. They're just getting better, like they've gotten a lot better with AI and all the advancements there. You can snatch your waist, you can make your shoulders look broader using a filter, and even if you're moving around, the filter will stay in place.
Speaker 2:That is probably the scariest thing is because I remember only like two years ago. You know you see a footer but like as soon as the person like moved their head, you would see like part of it, like a glitch.
Speaker 1:And you still see that, even with the good filters.
Speaker 1:But I think a the filters have gotten better and B the people have gotten better at learning what you can and can't do with the filter.
Speaker 1:So obviously, if you've got a filter on to make your waist look smaller, if you put your hands on your waist you're going to end up with like horrific looking fingers, and so people know this Same thing. If you've got like a pattern background, it will, you'll see, like the stripes bend in where the waist is being like in, and so people will make sure that they're positioning themselves against a background that doesn't have anything to be distorted. They're going to make sure that they're not putting other body parts in places where they can be distorted. And then you don't realize because there's nothing glitching. If the background is just black, like if they're standing there talking to their stupid little microphone with their giant headphones on as a black background and they're just kind of like moving around a little bit like this and their hands are up in the air, you don't see anything move and so you may not realize that there is a filter on them.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 1:Yay. But you know, in addition to knowing this, you can do stuff the old fashioned way. Let's not forget that you can. The Victorians actually did this back in the day. They photoshopped some of their photos. Have you ever seen like old Victorian photos where the woman's got like this little waist that may be photoshopped like 1800s photoshopped?
Speaker 2:well, like with a corset yeah.
Speaker 1:But you'll see some of them and you're like how is that even possible? It was photoshopped back in the day they were. They were able to it in even more on top of the corset. So you can do stuff like clothing, you can do angles, you can do makeup. You can take a cue from drag Queens. Contour yourself some boobs, some abs.
Speaker 2:So so the first thing that came to mind is and I made you myself here the MySpace- Duck lips.
Speaker 1:But but you here the MySpace Duck lips.
Speaker 2:By holding the phone up and then that way it's like pointing down.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then this way you're getting the massive cleavage for the girls and then the guys. Your head is blocking the big gut.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are all sorts of ways that you can do this. There's a woman I watch on Instagram. Sometimes she does fashion stuff. I always weirded me out the angle that she was like taking her videos from and finally she addressed it. She's like I'm really short, so I have. I put the camera down at this angle because it makes me look tall and I was like, all right, respect, I mean, maybe don't, because it's very obvious that you've picked this angle and I couldn't figure out why for a while. But yeah, you're shorter than me, so I see why you do it.
Speaker 2:It's funny, glenn Danzig, you ever hear of him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think he's like five, somewhere between like 5'3 and 5'5, I five, five I think. But like that's the thing is like uh, if you ever see pictures of him in the band, you'll kind of see everybody kind of like crouched down, but yeah, you know the surrounding him.
Speaker 1:Or if you see, like you know, like on his videos, you'll always see you know the the down up yep, yeah, we've been doing this for as long as we've been taking like photographs, people have realized there are good angles and there are bad angles, and obviously the same applies to videos too. Like you can position yourself in such a way that you know that with, like the right lighting and you know a little bit of this, a little bit of that you look swole as fuck and maybe if the person saw you in real life they'd be like, yeah, dude has muscle, okay, but like not the way you look in the photo or the video. You can have padding like butt. Padding is a huge thing for influencers, for fitfluencers too, to pad out your butt, like on the inside. I introduced you to the idea of scrunch butt leggings earlier, before we started recording. How do you feel looking at those?
Speaker 2:so, okay, I, I remember I saw a video and it was. It was basically one of these videos where girl was at a gym and she's wearing it and she's showing off about how you know, all these guys are, like, you know, like looking at her and everything like that, and she was getting frustrated and things like that. Oh, no. So a guy actually ditched in.
Speaker 2:You know he got a pair of those and he did the same thing. He'd go into the gym and you know he's working out and people were, just like you know, staring him down and, just like you know, like staring at his ass and everything like that. Because, yeah, if you are wearing something that's making your, that's sole purpose of making your ass stick out, then people are going to notice an asset sticking out.
Speaker 1:It's very obvious because I have seen them once in the wild at the gym when I was going to the uvs very briefly, and I saw them from afar and it caught my attention. I was just like damn. And then I realized I was like, oh no, those are fake, like that's not actually her butt. But it catches your attention. That's the whole point. Same for the other ones I sent you the picture of that have, like the um, a slightly darker area, like just underneath again, to give this illusion of like it's a shadow and your brain may recognize that like that's not actually a shadow. That's the leggings. Same thing with the scrunch butt ones, if you don't know what scrunch butt leggings are well they are leggings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as the name implies, the seam that goes down the back of the leggings has ruched fabric, so it draws your attention to the area and it does make it look bigger, like. Obviously, if the person turns to the side, you can be like nice, but if you see it from most angles, it does provide this illusion of like, wow, nice butt.
Speaker 1:So even when you get rid of the AI, there are still so many ways that you can convince people that they should listen to you, because look how fit I am, and I'm really fit and I do these three exercises. So if you do these three exercises, you're going to be fit like me. That is the implied idea behind all of these videos, and some of them are upfront about it. There's a well-known fit fluencer named Chloe Ting, huge on YouTube.
Speaker 1:A. This woman knows how to do marketing. I won't give her credit for that. She has very aesthetic videos. She knows how to write semi-clickbaity titles and she's admitted to it. She's like, yeah, you're not going to get around butt in two weeks, but people click on those videos. And the other thing she likes to do is she'll create these, like you know, two or three week programs and you have to watch the video multiple times. So the videos get these astronomical views on there because you have something who's like I'm going to do Chloe Ting's 2024, two week shred, 2024, two-week shred. And in doing that, you have to watch the ab video five times and the butt video six times and the arms video three times.
Speaker 2:And so it's getting all these views. I give her credit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you know again and she's kind of admitted it's still not a great thing to do because you are leading people on and you could argue that people should know that this isn't the case. But let's be honest, let's take a little look at humanity.
Speaker 1:It is unfortunately not the case, and people will believe that this is what's going to help them. At the very least you may lead somebody on, and so they start working out. They start believing you because maybe they're seeing some effects because they weren't working out before and now they're doing this. And then you hit them with the. You can buy my workout set here. That one I don't mind as much. It's when we get into the. Buy my workout plan, buy my supplements, buy this whatever sponsored thing that you're ingesting that I have a really big problem with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So and they know. They know what they're doing and that's why I have such a big problem with it is that they are preying on people's insecurities. Almost all of these fit fluencers Are there some good ones? Yes, there are some people who know what they're doing. There's some people who stick to their lane. You know like I am only going to give advice about long distance running because I am a long distance runner. But yeah, these fitfluencers, they're preying on your insecurities and they're doing it by all those things I mentioned above.
Speaker 1:They're also relying on the fact that there is all of this conflicting information out there. I mean, how many times have you just again in your daily scrolling, within a very short period of time, seen one person be like you should do the carnivore diet and then the next person is like don't eat meat. Ever you'll see like these two, these wide, like different things within a very short period of time, that's just for meat. There's like do this exercise, don't do this exercise, eat this, avoid foods in the nightshade. Family. Cut out carbs completely, only whole grain carbs.
Speaker 2:You should be carb loading. Yeah, I mean, I think of like eggs, where how many times have they been the thing that you should eat to the thing that you shouldn't eat? Back and forth. Same thing with milk, oh God.
Speaker 1:Dairy is really good for you. Strong bones oh no, oh no. Dairy is causing all these problems. No, if you eat dairy in this way, it's got lots of protein. No, it's gonna mess up your bowels like, oh my god. They're just constant and you can have all these ideas going at the same time. So there's all of this information out there and it's exhausting and it's confusing. And so when people see a straightforward video that's just like do these three simple exercises or follow along with me as I, you know, give you this workout plan to do a two week shred, just do what I say, eat what I eat, do what I do, and you know, you could look like me.
Speaker 2:People are going to want to do that yeah so where do you see the fit fluencing world going from here with what we already have, our abilities, oh yes, one thing I wanted to add on to, like, you know, the insecurities, like the ones that I, I I see a lot of, is, you know, uh, you know, tired of not getting the girl that you want it. So like, yeah, you know, the they'll, they'll go for one insecurity to bring you in and being, like, women want the, uh, the ripped man, and this is how you can do it, and you're just like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the fucking mom pooch sends me every time. I despise that, but it sounds gross. It's like, yeah, you had a kid, you've had multiple kids. Like your body may not be in the exact same shape as it was when you were 20. That's okay, that's normal, it's not something that you need to be feeling ashamed about. But they, they throw that in. So then you do feel ashamed, like, oh, is that something I should be worried about? I wasn't thinking about before, but now I am thinking about it and I'm focused on it and I don't like it, and so if I can do this exercise to get rid of that, then I'll be hot again.
Speaker 1:wrong oh, let's say I know you cannot target fat loss. I promise, If there was one simple trick, we would know it by now. We would know if there was one exercise to do, there's one anything with how fat phobic our culture is.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 1:Trust me, if there was one thing that you had to do, if there was one exercise, or even three exercises, even three exercises, that all you had to do was just do these, if there was one simple way we would have found. Somebody would have marketed it to you by now because capitalism, but it would be out there. Yeah, it's not because it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Ah.
Speaker 1:I know. So where? Where do you see the world of fit fluencing going, or how do we improve upon it Rather?
Speaker 2:is hard. It's hard to really say because, like you can say, educate yourself, but where are you getting the education from, you know? So it was like you know, like huh, I wonder, is this accurate? Let me you know, google this and then you're going to see you know 20, you know fit fluencers saying the same damn thing. You know, because, just as you said, it's copy paste.
Speaker 2:Uh, so so now you see it, you know, um, google is saying, like you know, like you know, this is you know your top 20, like options and everything, and they're all saying yes, so how do you educate yourself? And, and at the same, like I think this is one of the things that you know, I saw a thing and I I drives me absolutely insane that we're not doing this. Um, so, basically, in Finland, they have, you know, by like sixth grade, they have like an entire year of you know, teaching kids how to spot scams, how to spot, like, true media versus fake media. You know, and that's the thing is that, like you know you, they teach them how to to check for sources and things like that. Meanwhile, here in the united states, we have fucking, how you know, people are controlling the weather yeah, fema is digging up lithium.
Speaker 1:that's why, after helene came through, fema was kicking people out of their houses because they wanted to get the lithium that was underneath it was like running through the area. Yeah, you have crap like that.
Speaker 2:And it just came worse and worse every fucking year. It really is, oh God. So I mean, I think that you know, like, uh, how finland does, like we, we need that. We like uh, but unfortunately, like you know, then you have half of america who is like you know. See, this is why I don't the government is just trying to brainwash us and it's just like, so it's, it's just such a um, it's like watching a tennis, you know, you know uh, you have uh people who are, you know, thinking that you know, um, looking for conspiracies and things like that, and then you have like, okay, well, how do we bring you know looking for conspiracies and things like that? And then you have like, okay, well, how do we bring you know truth to light? And then you know, then that becomes well, this is a conspiracy that you're trying to bring things to light by only getting.
Speaker 2:It's just like oh shit, fucking yeah, just like back and forth. Yeah, yeah so I don't know. I I really think that I like Finland's idea. Would it ever fly here in America?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, so it's horrible. Yeah, it's going to continue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought about this too and we talked a little bit about some of this in our episode called Decoding Deception, navigating, ethics and Credibility being aware of who made this media and what do they do and what their credentials are, and so you can tell people to be like you know, if you're looking at a photo or a video and somebody's got like no skin texture, like never heard of her parts of the video that move when others don't really soft, blurred body parts, hair weirdly white and perfectly shaped teeth, disney princess eyes, unusual angles yeah, the list goes on. You can tell people like watch for all of these things. It's exhausting.
Speaker 1:Quite frankly, I cannot go through every video and constantly be just like hyper alert. Do their teeth look like too perfect? And watching their skin as they turn their face? Is that a flicker on their cheek? Is that the filter that's glitching because they turn too quickly or the lighting changed? Please, I can't. It takes a lot of energy to always be on like that and even telling people stuff like oh you know, watch out for anything personalized, and there are legit people out there who are making personalized meal plans and exercise plans, not Brittany Dawn. That's why she got sued by the state of Texas for scamming people. If it's too good to be true in the fitness world, it's a scam that you can be sure of.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean, I think the people who are trying are sometimes just exhausted or just don't have the ability. Again, the filters are getting really good. You may not realize. I'm confident in the fact that within the past week have I seen multiple videos with filters on them and I didn't realize, yes, because it was good enough and they knew what they were doing.
Speaker 1:All of that it's been proven that if you give people the tools to understand how fake news works and that's fake news on on all sides and to pick apart you know what is a clickbaity headline and stuff like that, if you give people those tools, they are actually better at analyzing media.
Speaker 1:But you have to get to them, to give them the tools, and I think we just we have a lot of people who don't want that. They're just they're, they're not interested in it, and so they're going to happily go through life. So yeah, unfortunately, I'm on the same page as you that this is just going to stay and it's probably going to get worse For a little while as we get better and better at it, that you're going to see more of these people who, as long as they have money, they can convince you of anything because they don't have to show up in real life or do anything. They just have to create this channel, create this persona, have these filters potentially be paying a real trainer on the side to come up with actual exercises and they just show you. Whatever is the current trend? I mean, I would believe, for instance, that chloe ting is probably actually working out like real workouts, but she's not going to show you that because that's not fun, that doesn't get 25 million views on the youtube video.
Speaker 2:That that's that gets left out you know, and and we're getting down to such a point where you know, like I think of dr oz, had to show up in front of congress and basically, you know, got a slap on the wrist and you know, all you had to do was just change a couple words, uh, and then you know, carry on yeah, yeah, the smart ones know, they know not to promise you anything.
Speaker 1:they know not to. You know go give too much information. For those who don't know about britney dawn, she is a scammer influencer who told people that she was giving them personalized meal plans and I think she specifically marketed herself for helping people deal with like eating disorders and people who got these meal plans A it was like triggering eating disorders and it was like really hard for them to deal with. And then there was a group that had been formed for people who were like doing the Brittany Dawn plan and they realized that she just had like five or six of these meal plans she was like giving everyone. There was nothing personalized about it. So, yeah, she got sued.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, she probably said uh, here you go, Chris, and that's personalized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean she was found guilty, if I remember correct, or it was like settled out I'm not really sure, but it was everyone knows. Like if you look her up, you'll see and you're like, yeah, you're guilty as accused.
Speaker 2:Oh God.
Speaker 1:So on our scale O toxicity and I'm aware that there's a lot that we didn't cover here but in the interest of time, just like a brief little overview of some of the delight that is fit fluencing that you might run into. Where would you rate fit fluencers? Would you say that they are a green potato, make you sick if you eat it, but you can just scrape off the green part and you're good to go. Are they a death cat mushroom 50, 50 chance of death or coma even when cooked? Or are they a delicious but deadly last snack of antifreeze?
Speaker 2:so if you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would have said green potato. Just based off of what we were just kind of talking about, where it's becoming more and more of quote-unquote factual information, I think as of right now it is, I would have to say death cap and Rising.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree that this is a Deathcap mushroom, because there are fit fluencers who I have come across who, again, are legitimately good at their specific field and they stick to their field and that's what you get. You know, I'm just doing this one little thing, and so you know that that I can deal with, and it's like you know yes, you're here, you're making exercise videos. You're not making me weird promises. You know. You don't have weird clickbaity titles. You're not promising things that you're not only not delivering but could potentially be harmful to someone You're very upfront about. Here's what you're going to get. Good, make that money. You're doing work. You deserve to be paid for it.
Speaker 1:I support that idea, but there are so many of them and it's becoming easier and easier, I feel like to get, get out there, and people have seen that you can make money from it, like so many of these things. And so now it's drawing in the scammers, the ones who realize that they have, like, good genetics and so, with a little bit of working out, you know, and the right clothing and the right angles and the right filter, they look really good and they have a great personality, and so you fall for it and you buy their crap literally. I mean, as far as I know, there haven't been any crazy incidents of a fitfluencer saying to this or follow me for that, and somebody has died Not that I know of. I could be wrong, but yeah, I think that, as you said, death cap and rising. It's probably going to get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1:I've stopped watching or getting any information about working out from Instagram. There was some stuff that I wanted to see and then I could not get the algorithm to only show me decent quality stuff. I kept trying so hard and being like not these videos, not these videos. This video, yes, not this one and the algorithm just like, couldn't wrap its head around it and I just don't want to see it at this point because it's there's so much out there and I don't have the education to be like this is a good exercise. This is a bad exercise.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you have some supplements to sell us, you can write to us at toxic, at awesome life skills. We are also open to being sponsored by your supplement company over on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, on threads on if it's not banned yet, tiktok, let us know. For the right price, we will love your supplement. Sell it to everyone Until next week. This has been the toxic cooking show.
Speaker 2:bye bye you.
