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Bad Influence Got the Problems Right but the Solutions Wrong - A Book Review · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

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  The review from the British Medical Journal said this book is a timely and eye-opening
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  investigation into how social media is reshaping the way we think about health.
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  Bad influence takes readers inside a world where personal narratives and viral
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  trends have more power than peer-reviewed research.
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  This is essential reading for anyone with a social media account or anyone who
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  cares about the future of evidence-based medicine in an age of influence.
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  That's what the British Medical Journal said. Here is my review of the book bad influence.
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  Spoiler, I don't think it's essential reading and I don't agree with the British Medical Journal.
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  Welcome to a bonus episode of the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
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  On bonus episodes, I do book reviews.
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  I would love to know what books I should be reading next. What do you recommend?
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  Let's talk about it. Hop over to the Health with Hashimoto's community over
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  on school.com, S-K-O-O-L.com, and let me know what books I should be reading next.
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  For any book that I give a positive book review to there will be an affiliate
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  link down in the show notes of course you can still go to your local library
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  and support your local bookstore amazon is just available for everybody so the
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  affiliate link is down there.
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  The full title of this book is Bad Influence, How the Internet Hijacked Our Health.
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  And honestly, as soon as I read the title, I was hooked. I knew I wanted to read it.
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  I did not expect to only give it two stars. And here is why.
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  I figured it would be a good book. I figured that, I mean, yes,
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  the internet has hijacked our health. I completely agree.
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  And I know that social media is not necessarily built on good research.
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  Social media is built on stories.
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  However, the author and I do not share a worldview. And that is where the disconnect comes.
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  Essentially, I agree with her on a lot of the problems she identified.
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  I feel like she did a really good job researching and telling stories and identifying
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  how the internet has hijacked our health because it has.
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  But I see the world as an American.
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  Free speech is our fundamental right. Every single person has free speech. We value that so much.
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  Also, as an American, every single individual in America can chase the American
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  dream, and that is built on autonomy.
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  So I really value autonomy, especially medical autonomy.
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  During COVID, we really saw this divide between people who believe in medical
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  autonomy and people who believe in the government controlling things.
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  And that's the worldview that the author seems to be in.
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  She is in the UK, and she has this worldview of growing up in socialized medicine.
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  The government's job is to take care of your health. That is not my worldview.
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  So while I agreed with her on a lot of the issues, a lot of the problems,
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  I did not agree with hardly any, maybe zero, of the solutions that she proposed.
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  For example, let's talk about medical autonomy. me. There are companies that
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  provide full-body MRI scans.
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  It is elective. You can choose to do that if you want.
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  Insurance doesn't pay for it. So if you are concerned, you can do this full body MRI.
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  Now the issue comes when the results come back and maybe you need further testing.
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  Maybe something was inconclusive or maybe there was a shadow and they say,
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  well, we can't see exactly what's here.
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  There might be an issue of concern. We don't know.
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  So you want to follow up. In the UK with socialized medicine,
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  then that follow up becomes the government's problem.
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  The government with socialized medicine, there's already a really long waiting
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  list to get onto any testing and the government pays for it.
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  So if you have this elective procedure, this elective test that you chose to
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  do, and then you need follow up, then who is responsible?
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  Well, in America, I guess it depends on your health insurance.
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  I opted out of insurance completely this year.
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  You can listen to my podcast where I interviewed somebody from New Health, K-N-E-W Health.
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  I have been really impressed with that not insurance plan, really loving it, quite honestly.
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  And I do intend to do a follow-up now that I've done my labs and I've done some
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  healthcare with my nurse practitioner. I will do a follow-up on New Health. Okay.
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  I value medical autonomy. And if I choose to do a test, then I know that I am
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  also choosing to take responsibility for the follow-up.
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  And same thing with wearables. She had a lot of, you know, I think a whole chapter
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  on trackers and wearables. I have an aura ring.
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  If you heard my story, you know that when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's,
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  I looked at the root causes and I I was like, I'm sure that sleep and stress
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  are either root causes or symptoms or both.
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  And I would like to know what's going on in my body so that I can take action
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  and so that I can see the data and figure out if what I'm doing is working.
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  When I got my aura ring, I realized that my deep sleep was just pitiful.
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  Minutes a night instead of 20%, which is the ideal. And so I worked really,
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  really hard on getting my deep sleep up.
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  Wearing an aura ring was very valuable for my health.
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  I got to see my own data. I got to see what was going on. I got to make changes
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  and I got to, you know, I got to track that.
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  One concern that she identified is who owns that data, who has access to that data.
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  And like I said, I identify and I agree with a lot of the problems that she identified.
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  Who owns that data and what can they do with it? Can they sell it? That is a big deal.
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  If you are having, you know, you use an aura ring or use a thermometer or use
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  something for fertility tracking.
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  People, companies pay big money in order to know who to target for fertility
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  and pregnancy because that's a huge market.
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  So can a company that you are using
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  to track your data or to do elective testing, can they sell that data?
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  That is a problem, and it is a really good question.
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  It's something to be aware of. But again, I value medical autonomy,
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  and I am going to say I want control over my health data, and I want control.
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  If I want lab testing, I'm going to do that.
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  In fact, I have episodes teaching you how to get your own lab testing. Her worldview differs.
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  She does not value medical autonomy. She values what she considers safety in
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  the government, I would call it overreach.
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  She might call it government regulation. I don't want the government regulating my health.
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  I don't want the government restricting what people can and cannot do.
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  Now, of course, there's a line. We don't want people to be unsafe.
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  So I guess maybe we differ on where we draw that line of what is unsafe.
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  Now, one big thing about social media is the algorithm is based on clicks.
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  It's based on your attention. And most people do not have their attention attracted
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  to facts and figures and education. We are attracted to stories.
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  And therefore, the algorithm, even with health, it is prioritizing stories and big emotions.
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  And that is a problem because the people who give big emotion stories are not
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  always, I would say not often, trained.
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  In fact, the more training somebody has, the more schooling they have,
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  which means they know more nuance, they know just more details,
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  they know the pros and the cons, they know that it's not all one-sided.
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  And that's not as exciting to listen to, especially in a 10 to 30 second quick video.
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  It's just not exciting. And so social media, you have to just understand that
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  every single video you're watching, the algorithm is learning about you and
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  it's trying to feed you what it thinks that you're going to like.
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  And then the more you consume what's on your feed, the more you think that everything aligns with that.
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  It's just, it's a mind game. I think we all know that, especially if you've
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  watched any of the documentaries on social media, or if you've read any of the books.
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  Overall, I mean, social media, it is not designed for education.
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  So I went into the book thinking of social media as something that I consume
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  and that I was like critiquing.
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  And like I said, I agreed with a lot of the problems. I was amused to find out
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  towards the end of the book that I'm an influencer.
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  I don't think of myself as an influencer. I think of myself as a regular person,
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  trained as a nurse, experiencing Hashimoto's, but also teaching Hashimoto's.
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  And I guess I just don't see myself as an influencer. But she did have a section on podcasters.
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  And specifically, she was kind of talking about health bros. It was a lot of the guys.
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  I don't know why she was picking on the guys. I don't remember hearing about
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  any of the females in the podcasting space.
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  But she talked, picked on Andrew Huberman quite a few times.
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  And I have listened to Andrew Huberman's podcast, The Huberman Lab.
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  I think it's really good. I think he does a very good job. He's very smart.
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  He knows how to read the research. He knows how to tell stories.
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  He knows how to give the pros and cons of different things.
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  I find a lot of value in his podcast.
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  Well, she feels that he's too much of an influencer. I guess she went into a
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  group, I don't know if it was on Reddit or somewhere, where wives were complaining
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  that their husbands were getting too healthy.
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  Now, this is not a complaint that I feel is very common on the internet.
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  I usually see wives complaining that their husbands are not healthy enough and
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  how can they get them interested in health?
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  I'm super glad that Andrew Huberman is in this space and educating so many people
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  and doing it in a way that guys relate to.
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  I have sent his podcast to my adult son. He's 18.
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  And so he doesn't want to hear information from me, from his mom.
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  In fact, my kids often complain that I am a health coach and I'm a health educator.
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  And why do you have to be so healthy because I don't want to be healthy, like that kind of thing.
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  So sending an Andrew Huberman podcast about a topic that he's curious about is wonderful.
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  So it was amusing and kind of.
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  Confusing, just bemusing. I guess, is that the right word?
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  That combination of amusing and confusing. It was bemusing to hear about people
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  complaining that their husbands were getting too healthy.
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  Now, in every single aspect of life, you can go overboard.
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  And so, yes, if these people are going overboard and the husbands want to invest
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  in, you know, saunas and cold plunge and doing all of the different supplements.
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  I listened to an interview. It wasn't on the Huberman lab. It was on a different one.
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  He said he was taking, I think, over a hundred different supplements a day. Like, that's crazy.
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  You can go overboard, but that's life. That's not Andrew Huberman's fault.
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  That's human nature. And in anything, you're going to be able to have the people
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  who, you know, forget there's a Goldilocks range.
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  And I want you to know that. I want you to be able to be the CEO of your own health.
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  That is one of my primary goals with this podcast is to educate you so that
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  you can make the very best decisions for your own health because you are the CEO of your health.
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  You elect, you promote, you hire different people to be on your,
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  quote, board of directors, your doctor, your chiropractor, your therapist.
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  All of these people are on your board of directors giving you the best advice
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  that they can. But you are the CEO.
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  You make the choices. and my worldview, seeing you as a CEO of your own health,
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  is absolutely not aligned with the message of this book, which is people should
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  not have this much control.
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  So overall, I gave the book two stars. It was fine.
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  I identify and I agree with a lot of the problems that she identified.
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  I just don't agree with any of the solutions.
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  So pick it up, read it. It's good to learn about what's going on,
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  how social media is hijacking your brain, and how the algorithm is trying to
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  feed you and sell you different things. That's interesting.
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  I just, like I said, I don't agree with our solutions. I would love to know
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  your thoughts about this book if you have read it or listened to it.
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  And also, please let me know what book I should read next.
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  This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
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  Please discuss any questions or concerns with your healthcare professional.
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  No statements have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and any
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  products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.