Individuals are intelligent.  The masses…well… not so much.  For a glimpse into our collective natural health care IQ score, just look at these Top 15 Most Ridiculous Health Crazes that nobody thought to question. How many do you know?

1. Vibrating Belts

There was a time, in the not-too-distant-past (as in, the 1960’s,) when the masses believed that fat could be lost by simply rubbing it away.  Women across the country would wrap a vibrating band around their “problem areas”, and set to vibrating until their teeth chattered.  The gadget proved about as effective as getting diet advice from an obese mute… and just as logical.

Source

2. Tapeworm Diet

Assuming you have no qualms walking around with an alien in your stomach, the tapeworm natural health diet is the way to go.  When you start “eating for two”, you can eat to your heart’s content and still shed weight like snake scales. Alas, those pesky agents over at the FDA seem to take issue with tapeworm ingestion, so you’ll have to hit the black market (or take a trip to South America) to stock up on parasites.

Source

3.  Oxygen Bars

It’s said that P.T. Barnum once muttered “there’s a sucker born every minute.”  Woody Harrelson must’ve been inspired by Barnum when he opened up O2, a chic bar where suckers can pay to suck.  Literally!  Now, men and women from Japan to North America are paying to breathe air (which may or may not be aromatic) with the understanding that this oxygen will help them feel energized, powerful and popular.

Source

4. Babies’ Foreskins

Ancient religion started us removing the penis foreskin from newborns (also known as circumcision). Now, modern cosmetics is giving those severed winkie wraps a bizarre use – to remove facial wrinkles for mature women.  What’s funny (in a sickening way) is that those women seldom know WHAT they are rubbing into their wrinkles; beauty creams seldom label the ingredient as “baby foreskin.”  What’s even funnier (in a sad way) is that those same women are paying a natural health care premium, smile on face, to get their container of cream.

Source

5. Drinking Urine

What do the ancient Egyptians, modern Indians and MMA fighters Luke Cummo and Lyoto Machida all have in common?  They drink their own urine.  Rumor has it that hydrating with urine is something of a panacea, curing everything from cancer to arthritis to allergies.  The craze has grown to the point where a company in India is now selling a cow urine-based soda to the thirsty masses…..crazy!

Source

6.  Consuming Placenta

The placenta is a growing baby’s lifeline, funneling in oxygen and nutrients during gestation and funneling out waste materials.  Tom Cruise, in true Scientology fashion, decided to eat his child’s placenta. No, we are not making this stuff up!  That could be crafted into a clever joke if he was alone. However, Cruise is just one part of a growing trend leaping from the womb of Japan.  The craze involves ingesting animal placenta (pig, horse, etc) drinks, each cup believed to slow the aging process and fix all kinds of other health-related problems. A common variation practiced here in the US is to ingest the placenta in a pill form.

Source

7. Botox Treatments

We’re living in strange times, when beauty comes in a bottle and some woman risk everything for appearance. We’ve all seen the women with disfigured lips, bloated cheeks and half-closed eyelids… all the result of Botox gone wrong.  But seeing the risks haven’t so much as wrinkled Botox’s popularity. It’s even finding use in new (and just as strange) crazes, like stopping armpit sweat indefinitely.

Source

8. Master Cleanse

Supporters of the Master Cleanse say the drink (a strange amalgamation of cayenne pepper, water, lemon juice and maple syrup) burns off fat and detoxifies the body, medical research be damned.  The medical researchers think those supporters are fools for drinking spicy pancake-ade outside of a torture cell.   Sure, the researchers say, you might lose a few pounds but you could just starve yourself for the same results.

Source

9. The Thigh Master

Before the Ab Roller there was the Thigh Master, a silly looking contraption sold via infomercial (with Suzanne Somers) in the early 90’s.  Even though the gadget’s practicality was questionable and using it made you look like a tool, the Thigh Master sold well for many years.  If that’s not proof of mankind’s impending doom, then we don’t know what is.

Source

10. Acai Berries

Once Oprah mentioned “acai berry” on her show its popularity spread like brush fire.  The masses believed it to be a fat-burning, energy-boosting, natural health-fixing miracle fruit.  Only recently did research show that blueberries have more antioxidant power, cranberries burn more calories and a berry will never cure cancer. Especially one you can’t pronounce.

Source

11. Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet

The Q-Ray bracelet eases pain, reduces stress, helps aching joints, increases energy levels AND makes you a better athlete.  At least, that’s what the advertising said.  Unfortunately, it was this same advertising which was proven false by the Mayo Clinic in 2002, prompting the return of $87+ million to bamboozled customers.

Source

12. The Bird-Poop Facial

Most people consider smearing bird poop across somebody’s face a severe insult.  In New York, it’s considered a luxury health care treatment that’s worth its feather-ruffling $180 price tag. Some say, in the past, women have used such Nightingale excrement facials for generations. Today women are lining up in droves to buy that line of birdie poo… only to rub it onto their smiling cheeks.

Source

13. Plastic Wrap

Do you remember the guys in high school football that would run around the field wearing garbage bags to tone up? Now it seems even soccer moms are jumping on the trend…… just to lose a few pounds. No one seems to have told these poor fools that this method only extracts water weight – the same weight you put right back on as you rehydrate.

Source

14. Pole Dancing Workout DVD’s

In a perfect world, at-home pole dancing workout DVDs would be all the rave.  But it isn’t a perfect world.  In the real world, only rappers and rock stars get to enjoy watching their wives/girlfriends keep fit.  The rest of us shake our heads at the stupidity of creating such DVDs and then marketing them to the masses.

Source

15. Cabbage Soup Diet

Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jaime Pressly both swear by the cabbage soup diet that seems to bubble up anew every couple of years. The idea behind the diet is to starve yourself of calories, even while eating voraciously.  All you’re allowed to eat is cabbage soup; since the soup has almost zero calories you’re virtually guaranteed to lose weight.  The trick is getting used to the constant headaches, deep fatigue, bad temper, flatulence and broken focus that come with the diet (and any other quasi-starvation diet, for that matter).

Source

No related posts.