“wellness practitioners” are the scourge of social media

This is a proper rant and I stand firmly by this statement that “wellness practitioners” are the scourge of social media and cause more harm than good.

We all know them.

The self styled “health practioners” of social media. They fall into two catagories on my feed. Either a mum blogger who’s signed up to an MLM scam (sorry not sorry) who is trying to sell products targeting certain demographics (mums, working parents, people who want to loose weight, people with certain health issues) or you get the glossy looking accounts promoting life and health advice, but when you dig deeper you realise the account or the person running it probably has no more qualifications than I do, to promote health advice anywhere and really ought not to be giving out that adivce.

It boils my piss (again, sorry not sorry) that people are either decieved into thinking that by doing an online course, reading some information, or whatever Google qualifications that they have paid for or have sgined up for, that they then can give people advice that could be at best misdleading and at worst dangerous.

You see, this week, I shared something on my instagram account. I generally like to be honest and open there, and because I have a supportive community of people in that space, I do share things about my life.

That thing clearly triggered a response via the algorythm, because not only is my instagram feed full of adverts marketing pscyhobabble at me, but I seem to have come under the gaze, somewhat like the Eye of Sauron in Lord Of The Rings, of a group of people who have taken it upon themselves to practice “medicine” or give health advice, with very few or very sketchy qualifications, via social media.

They like to share nutrition, supplement, exercise, mental health and life advice. Nothing wrong with that if you are sharing it from your own point of view and keeping it to about you. But when you start to push your thoughts onto other people aka “buy this supplment I take, it will make you get pregnant” or “stop taking prescribed medication from your doctor and take these herbs instead” or “if you drink this smoothie it will cure your anxiety” then you are on dangerous ground.

I have had two accounts approach me asking if I want a “holistic” cure for the issues I am dealing with. Unasked, unsolicited, and totally not appropriately.

I haven’t asked for cures or treatment (I am not dying, it’s not something that needs to be cured either) and as an ex nurse, with a medical background, I don’t believe in accepting health advice from random strangers on the interent, however well meaning or glossy they seem to be and no matter how many followers they have.

These accounts are dangerous. They practice methods that dupe and decieve people. They are not properly qualifeid to tell people how to mamage their health or life and take great offence when you tell them that attedning a few conferences with someoene from their company, or doing a course that they had to pay for from some random company on the internet does not make them

a dietician, a sports coach, a physiotherapist, a medical professional specilising in a partocular area of health, a nurse, a practioner or a presciriber.

It annoys me even more because I have good friends who have worked hard to get ACTUAL qualificftions from recognised and registered bodies in order to be able to practice their specialisms. I have a friend who is a massage therapist, who has done courses, hands on exams, training and instense practice to become qualifeied. Another friend of mine has worked hard to become a very capable and qualifed (again through actual study and learning and exams) personal sports trainer. I have another friend who is learning how to be a sports injurty specialist. My teenager sees a qualified dietican for her food allergy issues. I could go on, and on and on…

Basically if you are one of those people, with no qualifications or actual proper training who is giving out life and health advice on the internet, via social media, or in a special group you have managed to recruit victims, ahem, sorry people to, then this is for you…

YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO BE GIVING ME OR ANYONE ELSE MEDICAL OR HEALTH ADVICE. YOU NEED TO STOP PRETENDING YOUR GOODLE QUALIFICATION OR MLM SCHEME “TRAINING” MAKES YOU AN EXPERT ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN SCAMMING PEOPLE AND POSSIBLY PUTTING THEM IN DANGER.

I’ll stop shouting now.

Wellness practitioners are the scourge of the internet.

That is all.

Rant over.

Happy Friday.

No I don’t want to join your MLM scam, sorry, I mean scheme…