In 2009, a YouTube video about bananas went viral, receiving more than 12 million views as of 2019. In the 55-second video, the author suggested that he'd spent his entire life peeling bananas incorrectly. Although reasonable people can debate the merits of peeling a banana from the stem versus bottom, what is beyond question is that we often pick up incorrect ideas about how to be happy and healthy. In the same way that most of us probably learned how to peel bananas as children from our parents or siblings, how many of us also learned incorrect ideas about how to eat, exercise, use money, and even talk (e.g., swearing) during our impressionable youth, with far worse consequences than ruining the occasional banana?
Even banana peeling can be confusing Source: Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay This post is about incorrect ideas that impact our health. These are widespread ideas in America that were initially advertised as being good for us, usually marketed by powerful special interest groups who were positioned to profit at our expense. The truth behind each of these ideas is that they are harmful, affecting millions and in some cases hundreds of millions of Americans. Based on statistics about American’s health habits, there is a good chance that you have fallen for some of these bad ideas yourself.
1. Smoking is cool.
Source: Image by Jo-B from Pixabay Although many of the worst health ideas on this list could be ordered in different ways, unquestionably the worst health idea in the history of the US is the idea that smoking is cool. Backed by a powerful smoking industry that manipulated politicians and the media and employed the best lawyers money could buy, smoking rates soared to a high of nearly 45% in the 1950’s based on the message that smoking was popular, glamorous, sexy, and even healthy (e.g., smoking ads commonly marketed weight loss benefits and increased energy). Even today, after a half-century of science demonstrating the addictiveness and harmful effects of smoking, nearly 15% of Americans still use tobacco products with a new generation in the 21st century now developing nicotine habits through vaping and e-cigarettes.
As the undisputed leading cause of preventable death in the US, smoking claims the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, has stolen countless years from parents and grandparents with their children, and has killed far, far more members of the US military than any foreign army. And not only is smoking the worst health idea in US history; due to rising rates in developing countries, smoking is destined to become the worst health idea in the history of the world.
2. Cereals are a nutritious breakfast food.
Among the many myths related to breakfast (e.g., breakfast is no more important than any other meal), the most harmful is that cereals are a nutritious breakfast food. From the early 20th century to today, breakfast foods have been marketed as a health food, with advertisements boasting the number of fortified vitamins and minerals and even linking them to sports performance (e.g., Wheaties).
Source: Image by Aline Ponce from Pixabay The result of a century of skillful advertising and political lobbying, surveys indicate that a staggering 90% or more of Americans consume breakfast cereals, adding up to nearly 3 billion boxes of Cheerios, frosted flakes, and other popular brands. Coupled with soft drinks, breakfast cereals are a primary reason why Americans consume more sugar per person than any country in the world. The cereal industry was even powerful enough in the 1990s to shape the USDA food pyramid – including recommendations for multiple daily servings of cereals at the base of the pyramid – and helped fuel an explosion of diabetes and obesity in the US. Breakfast cereals are number two on this list of the worst health ideas because the idea has seduced almost the entire American population, harming the health of hundreds of millions of children and adults in the process.
3. Vitamins and supplements can compensate for an unhealthy diet.
Source: Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay More than 3/4ths of the American population regularly take dietary supplements, with multivitamins and other vitamins being by far the most common source. Although there are rare cases where vitamin supplementation is healthy and important – such as nutritional deficiencies and certain diseases – there is little or no scientific evidence in otherwise healthy people to support the more than 30 billion dollars Americans spend each year on these supplements. When people are asked why they use supplements, the most common answer is some version of “insurance”; we mostly use them to protect us from or to make up for an unhealthy diet. This idea, that dietary supplements can compensate for poor eating habits, naturally originates from the large and unregulated dietary supplement industry (the dietary supplement industry, unlike the drug and medicine industry, is not regulated by the FDA). While the supplement industry enjoys billions in annual profits, what makes this third on our list of the worst health ideas is that the ‘insurance’ effect of a vitamin tricks millions of Americans into excusing their poor eating habits instead of changing them. Those empty fast food calories don’t feel so bad, after all, when we can tell ourselves that we’re ok because we took a multivitamin.
4. Designing our cities around automobiles will improve our quality of life.
Source: Image by Quinn Kampschroer from Pixabay The automobile ranks among the most revolutionary inventions of the 20th century and is in many ways a symbol of American freedom and individualism. Beyond the symbolic value, however, the rapid rise of the automobile shaped the planning and growth of cities; the automobile is central to the way that US cities are designed for commuting and transportation. This planning model contrasts with the design of European and Asian cities – the latter primarily based on pedestrian travel – and produced predictable results: Americans having the lowest rates of walking and highest rates of obesity among 1st world countries. In a shocking number of US locations, there are simply no sidewalks or bike trials for pedestrian travel at all. With averaging commuting times for Americans at all-time highs, and mounting research demonstrating relationships between neighborhood walkability and our physical and emotional health, building our society around the automobile ranks as the 4th worst health idea on this list.
5. Television is a good way to spend our free time.
Source: Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay A survey from the Nielsen Company in 2016 found that American adults watch more than 35 hours of TV per week, translating to more than 5 hours per day. Although recent trends show that TV time is decreasing among our youth, this time is simply being replaced with alternative screen time using smartphones and computers. The invention of the TV transformed the American home in the 1950s, sold to us as a fun and healthy source of family time, education and entertainment. Even though a TV is relatively cheap to buy, however, it is incredibly expensive (to our health) to own. For example, research indicates that every two hours of daily television time increases our risk of cardiovascular disease by 36%, obesity risk by 23%, cancer risk by 18%, and diabetes risk by 14%. With TV time correlating with so many major health concerns, adopting the TV as our primary free time activity ranks as the 5th worst health idea in America.