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Every year, the wellness industry churns out new products and practices that it claims are finally – finally! – the real secret to being well. Sometimes, these trends are legitimate. Sometimes they’re utter nonsense. Often they’re somewhere in between.
These are the wellness trends that have provoked controversy and interest in 2026.
AI
AI has rapidly become part of every area of life, including wellness routines. More and more people are turning to chatbots for nutrition advice, fitness routines and even guidance on how to navigate relationships and grow as a person.
In May, Guardian readers shared how they have incorporated AI into their fitness routines. Some said the personalized information helped them stick to a routine and meet their fitness goals, but others acknowledged it was an imperfect tool. “It can be wrong, and confidently so,” said one AI user.
As for personal growth, AI can lower the barrier to self-reflection, experts say; chatbot prompts may help you more clearly define your questions and goals. But because these technologies are trained on large-scale, human-generated data, their recommendations risk being over-generic, and reinforcing “dominant cultural narratives, rather than what is meaningful for an individual”.
Parasite cleanses
In an interview last year, supermodel Heidi Klum revealed that she and her husband were undertaking a parasite cleanse because, as she put it, “everything on my Instagram feed at the moment is about worms and parasites.” The idea has trickled down through social media, where users have been making bold claims that deworming cleanses could help with everything from sleep, gut health, mood and skin.
While parasitic infections are real, and common in communities where people lack access to clean water and sanitation, experts say they are far less common in areas with good sanitation. What’s more, such infections cannot be cleared up by the herbal supplements hawked on TikTok. Parasitic infections are diagnosed with stool samples or blood tests, and often treated with antibiotic or antiparasitic medications.
Read more on parasite cleanses
Proteinmaxxing
Protein has been having a moment, and the usual sources – meat, eggs, dairy – aren’t cutting it any more. Increasingly, consumers are supplementing their regular intake – proteinmaxxing – with protein-fortified foods: powders, cereal and even snacks like popcorn and pretzels.
What’s the reason behind this seemingly bottomless appetite for a single macronutrient? Some credit it to the boom in GLP-1 medications: when people eat less, consuming an adequate amount of protein to maintain existing muscle becomes especially important.
Experts add that there is a ceiling of how much protein can help with building muscle – it’s generally recommended that most adults aim for 0.8g of protein per kg of body weight. And even for those serious about weightlifting and building muscle, protein intake and muscle synthesis seems to plateau above 1.6g per kg of body weight.
Divorce rings
Sometimes known as “F-you rings”, divorce rings are the result of refashioning engagement and wedding rings after a marriage ends. The trend took off among celebrities too, with people like Emily Ratajkowski and Rachel Zoe flaunting their divorce rings.
“It’s not an F-you to an ex-husband, necessarily,” said one woman who reworked her wedding ring into new jewelry. “It’s an F-you to the expectations, to the norms, to this belief that a woman’s sole purpose is to be a man’s wife, not their own person.”
Olive oil and lemon juice
Though this combination sounds like the base of a nice salad dressing, social media influencers started drinking it as a shot, claiming it improves skin and digestion.
This isn’t complete nonsense. Olive oil in particular has a number of health benefits – it is a monounsaturated fat, meaning it helps lower bad cholesterol and keeps artery walls flexible and functional. It also contains polyphenols, a type of antioxidant that helps reduce inflammation.
It’s a relatively low-risk trend to try. But experts agree you’d probably be better off eating the mixture with a salad.
Hyrox
Every once in a while, a new fitness method comes along that completely consumes young professionals with free time and disposable income. Before, it was CrossFit. Now, there’s Hyrox.
Founded in 2017, Hyrox is a competition that occurs over several days. It consists of eight 1km runs and eight different workouts, including pulling and pushing sleds, farmer’s carry, burpee broad jumps and rowing. Training classes include sets of exercises that closely resemble these – and they’re hard. “I had hoped my baseline fitness and adrenaline would carry me through,” wrote Wilson Wong. “They did not.”
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Boy kibble
“Boy kibble” describes a meal that has long been popular among fitness enthusiasts: rice, ground protein and some kind of vegetable.
“This is essentially old-school bodybuilding nutrition repackaged,” said one nutritionist. It is a fairly nutritious meal option when it combines the right amounts of protein, fat, carbohydrates and fiber. Simple meal structures like this one can be helpful for some people trying to meet their nutritional needs.
But it shouldn’t be the only meal structure one uses. Experts emphasized that other meals should provide a wider range of foods. Also, there are plenty of other meals that are equally nutritious, and a little more interesting.
Functional foods
It’s not enough any more for chocolate to be chocolate, or chips to be chips – these days, chocolate now offers PMS relief, and chips now have added protein.
So-called “functional foods” – foods that provide specific health benefits or enhance the body’s processes – are not new, but they have risen in popularity with the ascent of wellness influencers and increasingly health-conscious consumers. But experts agree functional food claims should be taken with a grain of salt. The amount of nutrients or probiotics added to functional foods tends to be far below what has been studied in clinical trials.
Nutrition expert Dr Marion Nestle says most of the claims made by these foods have “nothing to do with science. It’s about marketing.”
The burned haystack dating method
Developed by Dr Jennie Young, a professor of rhetoric, the burned haystack dating method offers an answer to the question, “How do you find a needle in a haystack?”: You burn it down.
Applied to dating, this means blocking any person who doesn’t seem like a match. There are also 10 “rules of engagement” (for example, don’t spend too much time on the apps; don’t message for too long before meeting in person) and 33 red flag rhetorical patterns (for example, sending an inappropriately sexual first message). Critics argue the method is too unforgiving towards men, and that it doesn’t encourage enough self-reflection on the part of the person doing the burning. Followers of the method say it has helped them go on fewer but more promising dates.
Vaginal wellness
The billion-dollar vaginal probiotic industry sells supplements and suppository capsules which it claims can improve vaginal health and odor, and prevent infections.
It’s clear why the industry is booming. For decades, little scientific progress has been made in treatments for vaginal microbiome-related conditions such as bacterial vaginosis and urinary tract infections. But there is little evidence the vaginal probiotic supplements on the market now help, and some may cause gastrointestinal side-effects.
Spermmaxxing
Like many wellness trends, this one starts from a place of truth and then quickly goes off the rails.
Research has shown that men’s average sperm count and concentration has dropped significantly since the 1970s. Experts attribute this largely to modern lifestyle factors like poor sleep, stress and air pollution. To improve the quantity and quality of one’s sperm, online influencers have peddled a range of dubious solutions which they sometimes call “spermmaxxing”. These include eating more garlic and dipping your testicles in ice water.
But according to experts, the best thing men can do for their reproductive health is to keep it simple: get enough sleep, eat healthy and move your body.
