Most of us are more than aware of the fact that health trends come and go and do so with increasing frequency. For instance, how many of you can remember when following a Jane Fonda aerobics workout on VHS – while also aping her tight leotards and legwarmers fashion styling – was all the rage? Or when everyone seemed to be auditioning for some yet to be announced martial arts movie and tai-boing themselves all over the place?
While these – and many other – once popular fitness trends may have faded away for the most part now there are always going to be new ones to take their place. So with this in mind, and some help from fitness magazines and Google, Facebook and Pinterest trends, here’s a look at just what the new top health trends for 2016 are shaping up to be and whether or not you should consider getting in on them.
Detox Teas
Expensive ‘detox teas; started getting hot several months ago, with various celebrities – mainly the Kardashians -touting them as a great way to lose weight and rid the body of ‘toxins’. There is very little evidence however that these teas, which are, for the most part, jam packed with caffeine, actually do anything bar trigger some nasty side effects, including abdominal pain, bloating and insomnia.
A far better idea is to pour yourself a big cup – or glass if you prefer your tea cold – of green tea. No special variety needed, a supermarket brand will do just fine. Why? Because simple green tea does have real, science-backed health benefits such as offering a stimulant free metabolism boost, the potential to lower high blood pressure and there is even some emerging science that suggests it may even help prevent Alzheimer’s
Meditation Spaces
Interior design and home renovation magazines and blogs all over the world are filling up with ideas and tutorials offering ways to create a dedicated ‘meditation space’ in your home. The idea of meditating to ease stress and relax is nothing new of course, but the idea is regaining popularity right now and, therefore, home improvement types have latched onto this. In fact, this isn’t actually a bad idea, although you really don’t need a special meditation space , just a comfy place to sit and a bit of peace and quiet. A chair on your deck would be just fine.
Waist Training
Those Kardashians have a lot to answer for in terms of big health trends for 2016, as they are also responsible for first popularizing the idea of waist training, although dozens and dozens of other female celebrities seem to be following suit. They all claim it’s helped them lose weight, flatten their tummies, create a more pleasing round posterior and even, according to the likes of Jessica Alba, help get rid of excess post baby weight.
Before you squeeze yourself into a corset for 12 hours a day there are some things you should know though. This has all been done before of course, most notably during the Victorian era. Have you seen all of those old pictures of ladies fainting all over the place, having to be revived with smelling salts? it wasn’t because the women of the 19th century were overwrought, dramatic damsels, as some tend to think, it was because of THEIR obsession with waist training.
In the short term, a very tight corset will squish your lungs and ribs, which makes it hard to breathe and possibly leading to those fainting spells. In the long term, you can possibly expect crushed organs, compressed lungs, and fractured ribs. And no real weight loss or ‘body shaping’ as waist training simply does not work. If you push your stomach in, all the fat will go right back to where it was no matter how long you wear the corset for. There are far more effective ways to permanently lose weight and reshape your body – like actually going to the gym – so try one of them instead.
Body Brushing
Social media networks are filled with advice about the benefits of body brushing. Again, hardly a new idea, this involves brushing the skin with a firm bristled bath brush before bathing or showering. Very little formal research has ever been done around the technique so you may want to take all those claims that body brushing ‘releases toxins’ and ‘purifies skin’ with a pinch of salt. What it will do however is exfoliate away dulling dead skin cells rather efficiently, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just don’t scrub until you are red and raw.
