Are We Thinking About Metabolism All Wrong?

"It happens every night at bedtime: A crazy-eyed woman tries to sell me something that will "ignite" my metabolism. It's not always the same woman, and it's not always the same incendiary verb. The variations are endless. Some would like to torch it, others want to make "my burn" work "smarter," and a whole host of folks are promising to optimize, boost, supercharge, support, and reset my metabolic engines."

"As a survivor of multiple waves of diet culture who undertook her first weight loss plan at age 11, I'm not new to fearmongering, and I'm certainly not new to the word metabolism. You might as well tell me that "calorie counting" is a hot new science. Research into the concept began in the 19th century."

"By the time my mother came of age in the 1970s, the notion that some people were blessed with a "fast metabolism" while others were cursed with slower systems was the going explanation for why some people were skinny and others were not. By the Jane Fonda era, "boosting your metabolism" was the main reason to shimmy into a leotard."

Social media influencers continuously promote various products and supplements claiming to boost, ignite, or optimize metabolism, creating urgency around metabolic health. This marketing phenomenon represents a resurgence of decades-old diet culture messaging. Metabolism as a concept has been studied since the 19th century, and the idea of fast versus slow metabolism became mainstream by the 1970s. The current wave of metabolism-focused content coincides with the rise of GLP-1 medications, which have sparked renewed enthusiasm for weight loss and corrected some previous misconceptions about how metabolism functions.

Read at Bustle