➡️ How to Spot a Right-Wing Grift

🎉 Happy Friday, Friends!

I've been talking about right-wing grifters in the wellness industry for a while. It's no secret they've fully infiltrated the health and wellness space - RFK Jr., need I say more? - but it's difficult to know how to navigate the issues they create.

Consider this my guide on how to actually spot them, plus how to act accordingly.

The language is often the first tell.

Watch for extreme, unbelievable, or all-or-nothing phrasing in posts, classes, and talks. Things like:

• "This one secret..."
• "Doctors don't want you to know this" (alternatively: "doctors are paid to keep this from you")
• "This cured my [whatever]" (especially "naturally" or "without medicine." Remember that these people rely on medical skepticism and bunk science to sell their products.)
• "All you need is my subscription" or "my proprietary blend"

The presentation is part of it too. If someone is selling you one special thing that will make you smaller, fix your pain, or solve your brain fog - especially if that one thing happens to be their product - that's the grift.

So here's something to remind yourself of when you come across one of these people:

No single thing is the answer to any medical ailment.

Pain, limited movement, poor sleep, low libido, brain fog... NONE of these are caused by one thing, and none of them are solved by one thing either. They could be related to dozens of different factors, and some of them may actually require a real medical diagnosis.

➡️ Sometimes you need actual medicine. That might still require additional stuff, like a shift in lifestyle, outlook, or social support.

➡️ Even if you don't need medicine from a doctor, your solution is probably way more complex than just taking a supplement.

Here's a concrete example I think about a lot: what a supplement-pushing grifter calls a "hormone balancing protocol" - available as a monthly subscription, obviously - a doctor might actually diagnose as Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune condition where the body attacks the thyroid. This condition is common in women, by the way.

If they're a good doctor, they'll have medicine, factual information to empower you, and a science-based plan that takes your whole life into consideration. Not a proprietary powder.

The real solutions to so many problems we face, especially as women, are not as sexy as a product or coaching subscription.

Sleep. Managing stress. Incorporating movement. Understanding your baseline physical health - blood pressure, cholesterol, organ function, thyroid levels.

I will never make a million dollars telling you that, which is a real shame because I have student loans.

And interestingly, even a grifting, butthole-sunning, urine-drinking wellness influencer has mentioned the basics at least once or twice.

On that note, you won't see me call out specific grifters here.

That's not my approach, and honestly, I don't think it helps. I've noticed that even folx I genuinely admire - people whose work I follow closely and whose thinking I respect - sometimes platform harmful, fat-shaming voices under the banner of "having the conversation." You've seen the duets and stitches on social media.

When I see it, I quietly stop following.

Not because I think we shouldn't talk about these things, but because rage bait doesn't move us forward. Platforming [insert-grifter-here] sometimes just pushes your audience to go see what else that grifter has to say, feeding the algorithms that allow them more reach and successful ragebait. It just gives bad ideas more oxygen.

What I do think about, every single day, is my role in the larger conversation. How I can help individual clients. How the information I put out can offer something simpler, quieter, and more honest about what actual health looks like.

If you know someone who could benefit from having these takes in their inbox every week, or someone who could stand a little balance in their social feeds, forward them this newsletter or my Instagram, @StrongWithDana. It helps me get the exposure I need to continue talking about the unsexy, free, accessible basics and work against grifters without giving them more exposure.

With you as we tune out the noise,
Dana