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“What’s Something Most People Think Is Healthy Today That Future People Will Shake Their Heads At?” (45 Answers)
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.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
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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#2
The hustle culture. Not everything you do needs to make money. You should be able to have hobbies that stay just that: hobbies.
#3
Indoctrinating children to religion before they’re old enough to use abstract reasoning and decide for themselves
Smutná_elfka 2 years ago
Honestly, this is dumb. When you believe something is good for you - being religious or non-religious, it depends on your preference - you naturally want to share with your kids. And even if you don't want teach them about it, it will still influence them. We shouldn't deny that it has to happen and learn a good way to do it instead.
#5
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
#6
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.
Deborah B 2 years ago
I wish society could acknowledge that being obese is not healthy, and accept and welcome people who are obese, without shaming or discriminating. Being cruel to people doesn't make them lose weight, or help them make healthy choices. It is very hard to sustain a lifestyle of self-dicipline, exercise and healthy eating, while you're being bombarded with judgement, disapproval and disgust every day. I was obese through my teens and twenties, and desperately wanted to lose weight. It's hard. It's harder when you have low self-esteem and everyone around you is expecting you to fail.
#7
The notion that "natural" automatically means healthier.
Donkey boi 2 years ago
I'm sick and tired of hearing 'But it's natural sugar!', Yeah it's still fecking sugar and has the same affect. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against sugar (in fact I probably eat too much myself), I'm just tired of people justifying it because its "natural". Asbestos is natural, but that ain't good for you.
#9
40 hour work week with generally unfulfilling jobs. Source: I'm a clinical psychologist.
#10
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.
#11
Lack of access/time in nature.
Rhyleigh Beer 2 years ago
I’m a kid who loves to be on her phone, but I try to be outside for atleast 1-4 hours a day
#14
Very short video formats (TikTok, Instagram stories, YouTube shorts) and their impact on our attention span
Donkey boi 2 years ago
TikTok is just a regurgitated Vine. It'll eventually disappear unless it adapts and starts doing longer videos and becomes a competitor for YouTube.
#15
Energy drinks - I'll be amazed if there aren't some long term effects of drinking can after can of Red Bull/Monster etc
Imaginary Friend 2 years ago (edited)
I don't think myself or anyone I know have ever considered energy drinks healthy.
#16
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.
Alice In_Hell 2 years ago
Eat proper healthy foods, stop buying processed, sugary foods and do something physical every day if only just going for a walk...that is a good 'diet'. I never got the keto diet...soooo much fat. I knew someone who went on it, lost weight and felt better, but as soon as she went off the diet, boom.. weight is back...so one has to keep eating all those rich fatty foods forever more? Though I did drool at some of the keto foods and recipes. Also, a tip when shopping, all the healthier food is on the outside of the aisles...stay out of the aisles unless you need baking products like flour, etc..most of it is all processed food.
#17
Buying the latest iphone every f*****g time
#18
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.
#20
Essential Oils. Lots of silly pseudoscience. And it’s probably pretty unhealthy to breath in aerosolized droplets of oil.
The Scout 2 years ago
Ironically most essential oil users avoid the oils that actually have some "real" active ingredients like cineol (in eucalyptus oil), menthol (in mint oil) or terpinen (tea tree oil) for being "too aggressive". Also oils should NEVER be used instead of actual medical care.
#22
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
#24
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.
Brocken Blue 2 years ago
Nope. Chiropractic care has made living life with three herniated discs bearable. Traditional doctors only gave me opiates, which didn’t help
#25
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."
Monday 2 years ago
I doubt this one. The apps and platforms we use will change, but not the habit itself. People are social creatures, first we had penpals, then we talked in forums, then chatroom apps and then BAM social media made things easy. Sure we probably won't use twitter/instagram/whatever 20 years from now, but there will be something.
#26
Children going to class and sitting in school all day 5 days a week for 12 years.
Ivo H 2 years ago
This will probably never change. Most adults just don’t care about educatiom, because: 1. They’ll never go back to school anyways 2. “The school was torture in my days, so why should anyone have better experience?” 3. “More young with good educations mean higher chance someone will steal my job”
#27
Letting children have unlimited access to the internet and using the internet as a babysitter.
Brendan 2 years ago
Before the internet, they had TV. Before that, they had magazines. Before magazines, they had radio. As a parent, I can assure you that it is impossible to give kids your undivided attention. If we spent all day with them, the house would be a mess, there would be no food on the table, no clean clothes, and no bills paid. Being a parent is more than playtime.
#28
Botox and lip injections.
Arizona Cowboy 2 years ago
A lot of people have Botox for medical reasons - like migraines, TMJ, muscle spasms, excessive sweating etc
#29
The amount of our lives we share with strangers online thinking we’re anonymous
Autistic apricot 2 years ago
Anyone on here could be tracked down, so you’d better be nice or someone might find your house… (not me, I don’t have the skills lol)
#30
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.
Snorkeldorf 2 years ago
I agree. "Spanked" my daughter twice in her life. One swift swat on the behind, pants on. Both times she was doing something dangerous and I just reacted. Being hit all the time when I was a kid did not make me a better person, it just made me afraid.
#31
Eating meat at every meal.
Lara Verne 2 years ago
I eat meat, but at every meal? It's not necessary nor healthy. There's many things you can eat, meat is just one of them.
#32
All those weird trending diets.
Stardust she/her 2 years ago
I don’t understand why people like my parents think that meat eaters are equivalent to serial killers. I just had an argument with my mom where she said I’m “cold blooded and have no consideration for the animals”. Humans are made to eat meat and plants. It’s either up to you or your body to decide if you want to be a vegetarian, vegan or non-vegetarian
#33
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.
Alice In_Hell 2 years ago
We are a spoiled society. No one needs to have a single serving waste of plastic to have a good cup of coffee..and the cost!! I yi yi. It is good coffee but the cost to the wallet and environment is a huge nope for me. (Please dont downvote me K-cup drinkers!.😊)
#34
"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".
#35
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!
Brendan 2 years ago
It seems you either went through a difficult childhood or are struggling as a parent (or both), so I'm sorry you had to go through that. However, it's not the same case for everyone. I have two kids, and although they tire me out and cost a fortune, they bring me unbridled joy. I love them more than I thought possible. So, for me, it's absolutely worth it.
#36
Juice cleanses. They are unhealthy and dangerous.
kitteh floof lover 2 years ago
juices are so high in sugar, they can't be healthy. and we don't need cleanses, that's what we have a liver and kidneys for.
#37
Constant notifications and other distractions.
Bob La Capra 2 years ago
Setting up my new phone, turned all the various notifications off....then later got a notification that I had notifications turned off.
#38
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.
harpling 2 years ago
Researchers are finding a strong correlation between people who use microtransactions (like loot chests) in video games at a young age and people who develop gambling addictions. They're still not sure if early exposure to microtransactions leads to gambling addiction or if there is an underlying predisposition to buying loot chests that will also lead to gambling addictions.
#39
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.
Firstname Lastname 2 years ago
As someone who was diagnosed with this over a decade ago, and is still retraining her body to react normally to normal things, I really hope this doesn't stick around for other unfortunate souls.
#41
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.
#42
At present,the use of polythene is causing serious damage to our environment. therefore,the use of polythene needs to be reduced immediately.
DC 2 years ago
We're in serious trouble about that. If it were up to me, I'd limit the number of plastic species allowed in food packaging, apply a mandatory colour code to it to make recycling actually possible, and demand an explanation why anything else is used, if some company actually wants to. Then, we hit the sheer minimum required to do this in any useful way, and not just pretend and execute pointless sorting habits as if we were addicted, knowing it won't make much of a difference, if any at all.
#45
Using all these household cleaning products in bathrooms etc. inhaling all that c**p
What do you think ?
Pablo Ramos 2 years ago
Do you know that EVERY ONE of your lists have at least one or two items repeated? Who does this? Someone needs supervision and feedback on their job...
PandaLuvs 2 years ago
This is a glitch that cannot be controlled. While yes, it's annoying, this list doesn't actually have any repeats! Also, everyone about to downvote me, please be aware that I'm just stating my feelings and if I've misspoken, please comment to let me know instead of downvoting, because they can get people banned. Peace yall.
Load More Replies...
Leo Domitrix 2 years ago
I hope the headline changes. It's not "Most People" in reality. Maybe "it seems like it on Insta and Reddit" but no, not in reality.
Pablo Ramos 2 years ago
Do you know that EVERY ONE of your lists have at least one or two items repeated? Who does this? Someone needs supervision and feedback on their job...
PandaLuvs 2 years ago
This is a glitch that cannot be controlled. While yes, it's annoying, this list doesn't actually have any repeats! Also, everyone about to downvote me, please be aware that I'm just stating my feelings and if I've misspoken, please comment to let me know instead of downvoting, because they can get people banned. Peace yall.
Load More Replies... Leo Domitrix 2 years ago
I hope the headline changes. It's not "Most People" in reality. Maybe "it seems like it on Insta and Reddit" but no, not in reality.
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