Health was never meant to be a fashion trend.

Yet somewhere along the way, eating well, moving our bodies and looking after ourselves became tangled up with a multi-billion-dollar wellness industry selling us everything from superfoods and supplements to cold plunges, wearable data and promises of living longer.

The irony? The more health information we have access to, the harder it can be to know what is actually worth listening to.

Today’s wellness landscape is crowded with influencers, algorithms, longevity clinics, biohacking, miracle ingredients and increasingly sophisticated marketing. Some of it is genuinely exciting. Some of it is backed by good science. And some of it is little more than clever marketing dressed up in a lab coat. The current fascination with biohacking and longevity is a perfect example: legitimate research is increasingly sitting alongside extraordinary claims and therapies with very little human evidence.

But this isn’t an argument against wellness. Far from it.

I have spent decades working at the intersection of food, nutrition, health and hospitality, and I have watched the conversation evolve from wholefoods and farmers’ markets to gut health, functional foods and now personalised health optimisation.

What concerns me is when health becomes something we buy rather than something we practise.

Because perhaps the most powerful health interventions aren’t particularly glamorous. They don’t require a subscription, an injection or a $1,000 device.

They require us to eat real food, understand our bodies, move regularly, sleep properly, manage stress, connect with other people — and develop enough critical thinking to ask one simple question:

Where is the evidence?

So, are the hipsters still hijacking health?

Perhaps they’ve simply handed the keys to the wellness industry.

When wellness became an industry: who owns your health? | The hijacking of nutrition

The hijacking of nutrition

We are living in an age of extraordinary interest in food and health. Superfoods promise longevity. Supplements promise energy. Functional foods promise better digestion, immunity, sleep and everything in between. The language of nutrition has become increasingly ambitious — and increasingly commercial.

But when did eating well become something we needed to buy our way into?

There is a long history of marketing products by teaching people how they should eat. Food advice has rarely been simply about nutrients. It has often carried a moral dimension: the suggestion that eating the right foods makes us healthier, more disciplined, more responsible — perhaps even better people.

In California, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse helped pioneer a movement around local, seasonal and organically grown food that has profoundly influenced the way many of us think about eating. At its heart was a wonderfully simple idea: know where your food comes from, respect the people who grow it, cook with good ingredients and enjoy eating.

Somewhere along the way, however, that philosophy became increasingly entangled with consumerism.

The good citizen became the person with the right juicer, the right blender, the right supplements and an impressive collection of jars labelled organic, raw, detox, adaptogenic or superfood. Health became not simply something we practised, but something we could purchase.

And that is where things become interesting.

The rise of the superfood

Our food environment has changed dramatically over the past several decades. At the same time, public interest in nutrition has exploded. People understandably want to eat better, prevent chronic disease, maintain energy and age well.

In Australia, where chronic conditions including type 2 diabetes represent a significant and growing health burden, it is hardly surprising that people are looking to food for solutions.

Enter the superfood.

The word itself has been around for more than a century, but its modern incarnation has become a powerful marketing tool. Suddenly, ordinary foods are no longer simply nutritious. They are powerhouses. A berry becomes an antioxidant weapon. A seed becomes a metabolic solution. A green powder becomes a shortcut to vitality.

The problem isn’t necessarily the food.

The problem is the story we attach to it.

Many foods marketed as superfoods are genuinely nutritious. Berries, legumes, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, herbs and whole grains can all make valuable contributions to a healthy diet. But there is a considerable leap between saying that a food contains beneficial nutrients or phytochemicals and claiming that eating it will prevent disease, dramatically increase energy or extend your life.

That leap is where marketing often outruns the science.

Who gets to define healthy?

One of the most fascinating aspects of contemporary nutrition is that there is no single authority controlling the conversation.

Governments publish dietary guidelines. Scientists publish research. Dietitians and nutritionists interpret it. Chefs turn it into food. Brands turn it into products. Influencers turn it into content. Algorithms decide which version of the story gets seen.

And consumers are left somewhere in the middle trying to work out what to believe.

The definition of a “superfood” can vary enormously depending on who is doing the selling. For one company it may mean a nutrient-dense wholefood. For another, it may be a powdered supplement with an impressive ingredient list. For an influencer, it might simply be whatever happens to be trending this week.

There is no universally accepted scientific definition of superfood.

That should make us pause.

Because when a word has no clear scientific definition but enormous commercial power, we need to become very good at asking questions.

What is the evidence?

Not: Who is promoting it?

Not: How beautiful is the packaging?

Not even: How many people on Instagram are drinking it?

But: what does the evidence actually tell us?

From nourishment to identity

Dietary ideals have always reflected the societies in which they developed.

A century ago, a “good diet” was often associated with providing enough energy and nutrients to work, grow and survive — preferably at an affordable cost. Today, our concerns are very different. We talk about longevity, inflammation, gut health, metabolic health, cognitive function and optimisation.

But one thing hasn’t changed.

Food still carries meaning.

We don’t simply eat nutrients. We eat according to our values, our culture, our circumstances, our memories and increasingly, our identity.

That is why nutrition can become so easily moralised.

Clean versus dirty.

Good versus bad.

Natural versus processed.

Disciplined versus indulgent.

Healthy versus unhealthy.

The danger is that we can start believing that every food choice is a referendum on our character.

It isn’t.

A healthy diet does not need to be perfect. It needs to be sustainable, nourishing, enjoyable and appropriate for the individual.

And perhaps that is the real hijacking of nutrition.

It isn’t that someone invented the superfood.

It is that we have gradually been persuaded that better health requires us to continually buy, optimise and upgrade ourselves — when much of what we need has been sitting in our kitchens all along.

Table 1. Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables (N = 41), by Ranking of Nutrient Density Scores, 201

Calculated as the mean of percent daily values (DVs) (based on a 2,000 kcal/d diet) for 17 nutrients (potassium, fibre, protein, calcium, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folate, zinc, and vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K) as provided by 100 g of food, expressed per 100 kcal of food. Scores above 100 were capped at 100 (indicating that the food provides, on average, 100% DV of the qualifying nutrients per 100 kcal).

The pursuit of good health and the politics of good food.

The consumer demand for the transparency of ingredients has never before seen such traction with the quest for authenticity about where our food comes from is gaining momentum. Do superfoods stakeholder have a duty of care when it comes to labelling their products, and ultimately who decides if a food is superior? The following report investigates if there are any criteria in place that qualifies a superfood.

Increasingly, popular superfood campaigns encourage consumers to try exotic powders; potions, tonics and treats that are often imported from far away destinations. Compared to every day fruit and vegetables, the marketing campaigns for superfoods often portray magical potions unearthed in wild jungles in remote lush regions, with happy workers in sustainable or fair trade working cooperatives.

As with food trends that urge people to consider sustainable food practice, food ethics – such as fair trade certifications – the superfood trend promotes appeal to ethical consumers and health advocates. This paper also discusses the implications of buying imported superfoods from remote destinations. In addition, the impact of fluorescent light in supermarket, foreign handling procedures, customs and intercontinental transit rules and regulations are also taken into account.

The phrase superfood is becoming increasingly utilized amongst healthy food lovers, yoga students and foodies around the world. However, at this point there is no clear definition of what the word actually means and the scientific, evidence-based research, is either conflicting, curative, or completely unsubstantiated. For decades, the Standard Australian Diet (SAD) and those who endorse it, have prescribed a well-rounded diet of nutritious wholefoods, fruit, and a rainbow of vegetables, complemented by good fats, animal protein, and fish.

Over the last two decades in Australia, we have seen a flight of new health foods, starting with wheatgrass in the mid nineties, to quinoa and sea vegetables, Goji berries, raw cacao, Spirulina, acai, maca, and ultimately arriving at ‘Peak Kale’. In the process of developing a theory for superfoods, this paper examines who decides what is a superfood.

Scientific Evidence

It is necessary to examine the scientific evidence that corroborates the classification of certain foods as superfoods to determine the veracity of possibly hyperbolic media reports. For instance, blueberries are commonly referred to as superfoods and have been analyzed by many scientists who are keen to determine their true nutritional value. Blueberries contain high levels of antioxidant plant compounds, anthocyanins in particular, which reportedly play a key role in slowing the growth of or completely eradicating cancerous cells in the colon. Other studies indicate that blueberries contain high levels of other antioxidants that have been proven to delay the ageing process and have been shown to reverse the loss of memory in rat test subjects.

Molecules that safeguard the body from dangerous free radicals are referred to as antioxidants. The main sources of free radicals in the body are alcohol and cigarette smoke, though free radicals are also generated naturally by the body’s metabolic system. If there are an excessively high number of free radicals in the body, oxidative stress may occur and this in turn may cause damage to cells and prompt the onset of unfavourable conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Several other types of fruit are classified as superfoods, such as pomegranates and acai berries. Scientists have found that acai berry pulp has strong antioxidant properties. However, the positive impact of these antioxidants has not yet been proven in human test subjects. In terms of pomegranates, it has been discovered that the juice of the fruit can help reduce blood pressure on a temporary basis.  Pomegranates may also lower oxidative stress in those whose immune systems have not been compromised. This is particularly noteworthy as high blood pressure and oxidative stress are key triggers of heart disease.

Similarly, beetroot has also been classified as a superfood on account of its ability to reduce blood pressure and reduce the risk of blood clots through the conversion of nitrates into nitric oxide. It has also been claimed that cocoa with its high density of flavonoids can lower the threat of heart disease by reducing blood pressure and increasing blood vessel elasticity. Salmon, along with other types of oily fish, is also considered a superfood on account of new evidence that its omega 3 content can reduce the threat of heart issues in high-risk patients and also reduce the joint pain suffered by people who have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

To read more, please purchase my research paper here