Cottom: Why Make America Healthy Again is a gateway to gimmicks

Who cares if we are sicker so long as we look good That s the gist of Fitness Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr s anti-science approach to making America healthy Kennedy poo-poos GLP- s not because they do not work for weight loss and diabetes but because exercise and clean eating are more natural He has suggested that eating glysophate-free grain could reduce eczema signs and that organic cellphone-free wellness farms are suitable for people suffering from addiction or who take attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder medication More tellingly he has promised to end authorities suppression of treatments like psychedelics peptides stem cells raw milk hyperbaric therapies chelating compounds ivermectin hydroxychloroquine vitamins clean foods sunshine exercise nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human fitness and can t be patented by Pharma Related Articles West Nile virus-positive mosquitoes detected in San Jose ICE agents create fear at California hospitals FDA approves updated COVID- shots but limits access for various kids and adults FTC has long stated products must back up healthcare contends A MAHA lawsuit would upend that Scrutiny says AI chatbots need to fix suicide response as family sues over ChatGPT role in boy s death Robustness his rhetoric has long implied is an easily attainable personal choice by pursuing it anyone can look and feel good Simple belief system If you strip away his famous surname and maybe look past his advanced age Kennedy is indistinguishable from a beauty influencer He has niched down his content narrowly focusing his message on the idea that clean and natural are synonyms for healthy Scientific recommendations can be overwhelming even conflicting So when the Make America Healthy Again or MAHA movement talks about fitness it really offers a simple belief system Healthy choices are self-evident in beautiful bodies That version of physical condition is bad science But it is great marketing for beauty wellness and wellness products that promise to make you look healthy whether you are or are not As millions of Americans struggle to get access to and afford robustness care spending on beauty is growing so much so that the global sphere for beauty products grew by annually between and in part because manufacturers are merging beauty strength and wellness into one big lifestyle arena in which cosmetic products are marketed as natural parts of clean living Products like these can be anything from talc-free eye shadow to hair progress vitamins to collagen powder to red-light therapy masks to full-body cold plunge pools that you inflate in your backyard They fill the vacuum that s created when we prioritize individual responsibility over safe scientifically sound strength guidelines Our national obsession with maximizing our strength through individual choices makes clean beauty sound vaguely moral Social media amps up its appeal Now almost any attractive person can hawk a wellness product as clean or natural as if to suggest that organic products with shorter ingredient lists are inherently virtuous But the notion that clean and natural are undeniably safe is wrong It also can be dangerous Look at how this mentality has invaded the beauty industry It is far easier to call a beauty product clean than it is to prove via science that a product is safe and effective Caveat emptor and all of that but this industry s consumers are younger than they were when I bought my first Origins skin care box in the s Preteenagers are among the fastest-growing age group for hair skin cosmetic and wellness products Numerous of those products target younger consumers with vague proposes for which there are no industrywide regulated standards Instead the half-trillion-dollar industry relies on self-policing For a few consumers that hasn t been enough For instance a research revealed that the hair relaxers used in several Black beauty routines are correlated with higher rates of cancer Solving this should be easy Regulators should mandate better products and inform consumers so that they can choose a healthier or cleaner product But to manufacture safer beauty products aimed at Black women companies would have to research what is and is not safe For a host of reasons that research barely exists Black women are underrepresented in clinical trials for one And historical racism in the manufacture and distribution of Black products has undoubtedly warped Black women s consumer power In economic terms consumers purchasing choices inform what the industry produces for them But when Black women don t have a lot of available choices what they buy may not signal what they want When people are underserved for a long time they will create solutions When the industry underserved Black female consumers for generations multiple became do-it-yourself beauty pioneers I remember my grandmother dying her pink flesh tone pantyhose in leftover coffee to make them match her skin tone Her generation also had a homemade concoction that predates in the modern day s mass-produced hair relaxers Black beauty way of life still has a pioneering spirit It is common to whip up a homemade conditioner from mayonnaise or a hair clarifier from apple cider vinegar But DIY beauty solutions can be a gateway into gimmicks marketed online as clean and healthy When regulation failed to give Black women better choices influencers saw an opportunity to capitalize on our jeopardy There are now multiple influencers on TikTok who decode product ingredient lists like true crime podcast hosts who promise to get to the bottom of an unsolved murder Their credentials vary Particular are scientists others have more in common with new-age gurus All of them sell the idea that there is an attainable clean beauty protocol available to anyone informed enough and brave enough to seek it If I close my eyes they sound a lot like Kennedy He is also very suspicious of multisyllabic scientific compound names There is a level at which MAHA makes certain intuitive sense just as it makes intuitive sense to doubt the chemists who put formaldehyde in Black women s hair relaxers My gut says that someone should absolutely be in charge of making our products safe If I made that gut instinct my political identity MAHA s convoluted approach to strength might make sense Kills critical thinking But slashing scientific research or regulation won t give me better options It will mean that more consumers will experience the skewed incentives that Black women have long endured It will mean more bad options and more individual responsibility for the consequences of those bad options That is a perfect storm for MAHA s real field misinformation The movement s demonization of chemicals shows how an obsession with being clean can shut down critical thinking A large number of clean-beauty enthusiasts consider anything made in a lab an unnatural potentially toxic threat to healthy living But scientific labs are the ideal places to create the sustainable bioidentical dupes of naturally occurring compounds that make our products safe and effective On the other hand various things labeled natural can be toxic Vitamin D is for all intents and purposes natural But take too much of it and you re sick Consumers with fewer safe healthier choices are greater targets for this sort of misinformation and manipulation So when a beauty influencer like Kennedy takes over a regulatory arm of the U S executive and brands deregulation and consumer exposure as taking care of one s wellbeing he s making all of us marks Americans get sicker and scammers get richer Strength isn t just for beautiful people and healthy choices do not happen in a vacuum Regulation agenda science and society work together to produce healthy choices When they don t or can t scammy solutions fill the void Anyone selling aesthetics in lieu of actual strength is just promising to make us into good-looking corpses Tressie McMillan Cottom is a New York Times columnist