71 Things Most People Consider Healthy Today That Future Generations Might Shake Their Heads At

You should be drinking celery juice every morning. You must avoid dairy at all costs, but if you want to make your coffee healthier, you should put a spoonful of butter into it. Fruit should be the majority of your diet, but carbs are evil and will cause you health problems. You should go keto if you want to lose weight, but eating foods with a lot of fat is dangerous. You should be using essential oils every day, but the only way you can truly be healthy inside and out is if you have the proper crystals displayed around your home. 

When it comes to what is actually healthy, there’s a lot of contradictory information floating around out there. So how are we to know what is safe and what isn’t? After all, some doctors used to recommend smoking cigarettes less than a hundred years ago.

One curious Reddit user recently asked, “What’s something most people think is healthy today that future people will shake their heads at?”, and thousands of people called out common dietary advice, lifestyle practices and habits in the replies. Below, we’ve gathered some of their most thought-provoking responses, so be sure to upvote the things you are wary of as well. Then let us know in the comments what else you think will be viewed as unhealthy in the future, and if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article debunking food and nutrition myths, you can find that right here.

#1

The amount of our lives we share with strangers online thinking we’re anonymous

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#2

All those weird trending diets.

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#3

I already believe that the majority of fitness influencers would benefit from counselling rather than advising followers on Instagram, so that's undoubtedly the case.

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#4

Cooking things in plastic, eating and drinking things out of plastic.

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#5

The notion that "natural" automatically means healthier.

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#6

Vaping instead of smoking. You're still filling your lungs with stuff that shouldn't be there in the end. Looks like more research is coming out about the risks too. It's not as bad as smoking, but it's got its own issues. It's fine if you're using vapes and e-cigs to quit smoking, but it's gone beyond that for quite some time now. Many people just exchanged one habit for the other.

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#7

Chiropractic "adjustment", it is already something that is negligible in terms of what it does but it can also be dangerous. So many people get injured by it and some even get paralyzed because of it.

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#8

Taking a billion different vitamins in pill form.

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#9

Very short video formats (TikTok, Instagram stories, YouTube shorts) and their impact on our attention span

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#10

The hustle culture. Not everything you do needs to make money. You should be able to have hobbies that stay just that: hobbies.

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#11

Children going to class and sitting in school all day 5 days a week for 12 years.

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#12

Essential Oils. Lots of silly pseudoscience. And it’s probably pretty unhealthy to breath in aerosolized droplets of oil.

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#13

Not vaccinating your children. Where the hell did this trend come from? It's so dangerous and re-inviting deadly diseases like measles back into our society.

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#14

40 hour work week with generally unfulfilling jobs. Source: I'm a clinical psychologist.

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#15

Social media. I'm being super hypocritical, but we're gonna look back on social media today the same way our parents looked back on the time they smoked and said "yeah, everybody smoked back then, it really wasn't a big deal. Yeah, we knew it wasn't good for you, but we still did it anyway. No, we didn't think of it as some sort of addiction; we just did it because that's what people did back then."

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#16

Slimming drinks and supplements

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#17

A part of "fat acceptance." While, of course, everyone deserves respect, regardless of size, the idea that being very overweight is a healthful lifestyle, is just wrong. Sure, most of the bodily harm of obesity won't catch up to you, until later in life. But it WILL catch up to you. I've been overweight most of my life. While I'm generally healthy, my knees have paid the price, of supporting the extra poundage. Don't fool yourself into thinking you'll escape the bodily harm of long term obesity.

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#18

Constant notifications and other distractions.

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#19

Soda. Humans aren’t supposed to even consume more than a fraction of the sugar in soda and everyone just smiles and drinks their liquid sugar

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#20

Circumcision

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#21

Chemo in the future is going to be the same as how we look at medieval cures and practices.

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#22

"Low fat" products which predominantly were filled with high fructose corn syrup (high sugar diets) and other things that lead to metabolic syndrome (partially hydrogenated oils). Some have recognized the dangers in this already but in 40 years maybe we'll see people look back and go "they made all of this money at the expense of ordinary citizens health".

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#23

Caffeine and alcohol being so encouraged by society

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#24

Juice cleanses. They are unhealthy and dangerous.

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#25

Meat in general, but particularly processed, smoked and grilled meats. I think in 10-20 years most people in the US will be cutting meat consumption by double-digit percentages due to cost. Health studies show our need for protein is much better fulfilled with a combination of (1) smaller servings of meat than is now common and (2) non-meat protein sources. Meat will still be part of our diet, it's the preparation and quantity that people in the future will find incredible. Processed meats, smoked meats, and grilled meats have compounds on the surface shown to cause cancer.

Mind you, I find this depressing because I eat all these things. Too late for me though, you all save yourselves and I'll take the hit along with your bacon.

#26

Air fresheners/scented candles!

#27

The way we look at having kids.

You have a dogs**t job, your spouse works as well so nobody will ever be home, when you are home you'll both be tired and miserable from work, you and/or your spouse *clearly* have childhood issues to work out in therapy, you/your spouse or *both* have a genetic condition of some kind be it mental or physical, the food in the house is all pre-made/freeze-dried/frozen/junk, you live in an apartment/too small of a house, you're a slave to massive debt for a useless degree/a car/etc, etc, etc...

Go ahead and have kids, it'll be great and thier lives will be absolutely fine!

#28

Indoctrinating children to religion before they’re old enough to use abstract reasoning and decide for themselves

#29

Eating meat at every meal.

#30

Distance running. Consistent impact wreaks havoc on your joints and tendons, especially if you’re a heel striker or flat footed, which is most of us.

#31

Energy drinks - I'll be amazed if there aren't some long term effects of drinking can after can of Red Bull/Monster etc

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#32

Exposing your children all over social media.

#33

From a doctor’s perspective, half of the US health food industry is absolute garbage.

1. Supplements. What’s in them? They aren’t regulated, so anything could be! Many studies have found a lack of actual advertised product at best, harmless filler such as saw dust commonly, and heavy metal and other toxin contamination such as lead and arsenic at worst. All for the cheap price of $$$$$ and your health. Is it possible that some could be helpful for specific things? Yup! But are most things on the shelf going to fit in that category? Absolutely not, no.

2. Most “diet” plans/snacks/products. Low in fat but high in sugar? Serving size of 1/4 of what is sold? Contains some mysterious fruit “scientifically shown” to combat the laws of physics? A laxative in disguise? Most of these plans are just like get rich quick schemes. They are sold to provide a quick path to a healthier and better life. But diet isn’t a quick fix. It’s a slow combination of everyday habits. Diet culture is a toxic scam and their advertisements are sickening both for the lies commonly told and the mental health toll on the targeted audience. Hell, most of the “good choice” food items at the grocery could be considered unhealthy processed garbage.

3. Fruit juice. Despite what Steve Jobs believed, fruit juices are pure sugar in a glass. Calories with limited nutrient content and a high glycemic load.

4. The way we teach physical activity. We use sports as a competition and filter kids out, only supporting the best of the best financially and through school programs. But the reality is that team and club sports can keep people active and engaged in their communities for life. This is healthy. If we can foster low-level skill sports for everyone we will have healthier and happier communities. Except for maybe American football. That s**t will give you brain injuries.



Edit: that preworkout your friend swears by? It’s probably caffeine and some protein powder. Some of them may contain amphetamine analogues and other stimulants. The special formulations and vitamins they say they have (if actually present) are usually ineffective amounts or mischaracterizations of studies anyway. Drink an Americano and eat a diet full of vegetables, nuts, and beans, and you’ll be good to go.

Image credits: LatrodectusGeometric

#34

orthorexia


ipakookapi replied:

For those who don't know that word, it's basically pathological fitness. Training more and eating more specific than your body and mind wants or needs.

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#35

living in highly insulated homes without ventilation

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#36

Letting children have unlimited access to the internet and using the internet as a babysitter.

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#37

Lack of access/time in nature.

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#38

Playing football as a kid as some 'healthy' growing up thing. As someone who suffered from three severe concussions before I was 20, let me tell you: head injuries are no joke. On a serious matter: I'm not yet 40 but my wife and I have already had an "end of life" talk about what to do with me when my memory, which is already deteriorating, goes completely.

#39

I would imagine fish, there are probably so many micro plastics in those

#40

Gluten free diets when you don't have celiacs disease.

#41

Advertisement for gambling (most forms of gambling and most forms of advertisement). We already know they're unhealthy when people affected by it becomes gambling addicts, but people still think gambling addicts is not a big enough problem and that the current level is just a healthy amount of entertainment. But I think the current level is already too much.

#42

Too many people are convinced exotic fruits from very specific locations of the world that require obscenely specific conditions for growth are great for breakfast.

Eat broccoli.

#43

K cups. The inventor of K cups already laments what his invention has wrought. He's talked about how they're not recyclable, expensive, and not good quality coffee.

#44

Spray tanning

#45

At present,the use of polythene is causing serious damage to our environment. therefore,the use of polythene needs to be reduced immediately.

#46

Breakfast Cereal.

#47

There's been a really weird trend of people drinking "alkaline water" that has a pH of 9.5 or some s**t. Here's the truth about it: the second it comes in contact with your stomach acid, it's not gonna be alkaline anymore. The pH of your body is most likely fine, and if it actually isn't, you should be in an emergency room instead of listening to some snake oil salesman

#48

Orange juice- the amount of sugar they put in smoothies and orange juice is insane. It's almost the same amount as a can of coke.

#49

Whitening teeth

#50

wouldn’t say today, but some people still normalise hitting your kids pretty hard, maybe it’s just cause i was hit pretty hard as a kid, but i’ll never do that.

#51

Botox and lip injections.

#52

89% of packaged food is trash.

#53

Smoking marijuana in large amounts daily.

#54

Using all these household cleaning products in bathrooms etc. inhaling all that c**p

#55

making two week’s worth of boiled unseasoned chicken and broccoli at once and eating it for 14 days straight

#56

The child-like worship of billionaires.

#57

The amount of sugar in food.

#58

Drinking milk

#59

People avoiding carbs, especially when trying to lose weight.

Yea some carbs should be in moderation but overall carbs are a vital part of a diet and a must for a healthy body and lifestyle, and should be your largest food group whether you are trying to lose weight or not.

#60

The school day starting at the a** crack of dawn.

#61

Highly processed white flour.

#62

I know the keyword is most, but I couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass, & there might be a lot of people who think this is safe.

TLDR: Round-Up Weed Killer

I recently had a talk with a company rep from a local insect control company, who swore that Round-Up Weed Killer was safe.

He told me it was safe around kids, said he would be okay ingesting it, and that he had “spoken to the scientists” who made Round-Up, and it was hands down the safest product on the market for weed killers.

I guess I should’ve said, “What about over one hundred thousand people who are pretty sure it gave them cancer?”

I went, “didn’t the people who own Round-Up agree to billions of dollars in settlement payouts?”

He said, oh, that’s just people trying to get money from them. I wouldn’t recommend a product that’s unsafe.

#63

Keto

#64

Those prepackaged salads.

#65

Canola oil

#66

Cooking with Teflon pans.

#67

The vegan diet.

#68

Vaping

#69

Giving your kids melatonin every night as a part of their bedtime routine.

#70

Buying the latest iphone every f*****g time

#71

Building far out suburban single family detached housing developments all at once and then saddling the city with the maintenance liability when the infrastructure eventually needs to be replaced all at the same time using insufficient funds raised from the too-low tax base of non-intensive zoning, then papering over the debt by building another similar development to garner another temporary infusion of state and federal funds in order to create an illusion of financial solvency while further increasing reliance on growth to prevent city finances from collapsing.

Just because something is common doesn't mean it's actually healthy...

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