Keto. Paleo. Intermittent Fasting. Keywords and confident slogans spouted by gym-goers, fitness influencers and even those with a passing interest in health and nutrition. Clean vs dirty, natural vs chemical, organic only; all keywords to entice viewers on social media with quick and easy factoids over established public health discourse.
Social media posts flood and gamify health and nutrition over platforms such as Tik Tok or Instagram with flashy graphics and AI generated information, all to get views.
The problem isn’t the lack of discussion when it comes to health and nutrition but the framing around such discussions. Selling a fad lifestyle over genuinely educating viewers on established systems.
On platforms optimised for certainty and speed, nutrition has become a performative genre. Keto is presented as metabolic truth one year; carnivore diets as ancestral correction the next; intermittent fasting as a cognitive and spiritual reset soon after.
Parallel to this information slop: seed oils as industrial toxins, gluten as inflammatory agent, sugar as poison, dairy as inherently disruptive.
We see this often with ingredients such as monosodium glutamate (MSG) or aspartame, which are vilified as artificial and chemical despite those same compounds being consumed indirectly in packaged foods without recognition.
MSG which is naturally found in household staples such as tomatoes or soy sauce is often cited negatively to entire cuisines being perceived as unhealthy especially with its permeance in South East Asian or East Asian cuisine.
Aspartame the main proponent in diet marketed beverages is seen as more harmful than full sugar beverages despite both types of beverages being highly processed and chemical as it is.
With all this information being presented to us through social media, who does the onus fall on when making the right choices in regards to health and nutrition?
Bangladesh presents itself as a nation that loves and prides itself off of its food both regional and with foreign options. Is the average Bangladeshi equipped to make informed decisions in regards to their own health?
Pop into a local gym or attend a weekly family dinner and notice the scrutiny placed on individuals making noticeable changes to their diet and eating habits.
An individual might cite a social media reel or post as proof and example of a positive change only to have it challenged by another who claims the old, established ways work the best.
The consumption of protein supplements is perhaps the most contested of such changes with many regarding “the protein powder” as this unusual and unnecessary addition to diets and ignoring that it is an essential and preexisting part of all diets.
The language used in such social media posts do little to change this narrative as protein has become the catchword in regards to all things health and fitness especially when it comes to supplements. The idea being sold that protein is under consumed especially in Bangladeshi diets is especially an area of derision for fitness influencers both foreign and local.
The average Bangladeshi is more likely to associate a protein supplement as unnecessary or even liken to exogenous hormone use (steroids) due to its proximity to bodybuilding, once again forgetting protein’s role as a natural building block of life as we know it.
What are people actually doing now? Health has become something to be performed in fragments, adopted and discarded in phases. Diets are transient, rarely completed, always replaced by the next fad promising better results. A reel shared by a friend is repeated as fact, a shortcut to certainty in an already crowded space.
The “one size fits all” mindset is especially persistent here: what works for one person is treated as universal truth, making it harder to step away and find approaches that actually fit individual needs. In trying to optimise health, people often end up inheriting someone else’s version of it.
What can people actually do to make better choices? The answer is not straightforward, particularly when health and nutrition are so closely entangled with cultural norms. In many cases, new or more evidence-based approaches are dismissed as unproven or framed as “Westernized,” and therefore seen as incompatible with Bangladeshi practice.
This creates a friction where even basic nutritional adjustment becomes ideological.
It also surfaces the familiar set of justifications used to defend existing habits: that “famine genetics” prevent muscle gain, that diabetes is purely genetic and therefore unmanageable, or that binge eating is simply an expression of celebration rather than something to be moderated.
These narratives are not just beliefs, but coping mechanisms that make change feel unnecessary, or even culturally inappropriate.
There is no inherently right diet for everyone. Simple blood, liver or kidney tests can show irregularities in one’s daily and help doctors and nutritionists guide potential patients. Viral health claims should be a cause for discussion, not substitutes for evidence.
Separating accepted cultural norms from biological necessity without resorting to extremes; not every traditional habit is inherently harmful, just as not every modern alternative is superior.
The most informed approach is not one built on certainty but restraint. Rejecting the pull of slogans from social media or established norms from cultural beliefs. Less of “eat this, not that” and more of an understanding of “what, when, and why eat at all.”
