All of these fads center around one fundamental trait: the sense of having control over your life. It doesn't matter whether they work; they sell you on the experience of "I'm successfully doing this hard thing to make myself better".
And it just so happens that Silicon Valley is full of people who are addicted to the sensation of improvement. Eating disorders stem from the same psychological mechanism, just a different definition of "improvement".
I also wonder how much of it is people desperately trying to undo the damages of stress. What people might really need is shorter work weeks and more time off (including time away from social media and other non-work related stressors).
But that's not something out culture really allows for or encourages. So we look to miracle cures so we can continue feeling productive.
I’d put it even further than “just” attempting to undo the damages of stress.
The local community, where you’d buy your meat from your local butcher that had been in your neighborhood for 15 years, vegetables from the farmers’ market where the produce is all from within a 50 miles radius, where you go to church/temple/etc with the same faces every week, where the teachers and doctors that took care of you now take care of your children, etc, is pretty much dead.
What has replaced it? Amazon Prime, precarious contractor jobs, cheap replaceable crap brought in by cargo ship, startups claiming that they are just like “a family”. Of course this leaves a gap in people’s need for a sense of place and community. Of course it’s the perfect opportunity for charlatans who know how to tap into exactly that.
> What has replaced it? Amazon Prime, precarious contractor jobs, cheap replaceable crap brought in by cargo ship, startups claiming that they are just like “a family”. Of course this leaves a gap in people’s need for a sense of place and community. Of course it’s the perfect opportunity for charlatans who know how to tap into exactly that.
Long ago, I read this quip: (paraphrased) "Factory farming took a working integrated solution (use livestock waste to fertilize crops on the same diversified farm) and neatly turned it into two problems (where to dump the concentrated livestock waste from one specialized farm, and where to find fertilizer for the crops of another differently specialized farm)."
Seems like a lot of modern "solutions" have the same character.
I don't really see how saunas, supplements, and fasting stand-in for "a sense of place and community". Maybe meditation retreats, but not most of the things mentioned in the article.
You buy the supplements, get on the company’s mailing lists, go to the lectures, join Facebook groups with people following the same thing to share experiences, attend meetups, etc. Of course it’s a social, shared experience first and foremost.
Don't be needlessly incendiary. Whether or not it's an eating disorder is contextual. It's not just about not eating food for a while; it's about things like the presence or absence of an addictive pattern, and the benefits or detriments to a person's physical and spiritual well-being. I would say in the context of the article, it probably leans towards eating disorder.
I'm not an expert on eating disorders, so I will have to give you the benefit of the doubt. In my mind, I always put it in the context of something like anorexia or bulimia which has obvious negative physical and psychological effects.
However, I fail to see how daily intermittent fasting can be placed in the same category, maybe you can give me some more context here?
And it just so happens that Silicon Valley is full of people who are addicted to the sensation of improvement. Eating disorders stem from the same psychological mechanism, just a different definition of "improvement".