Change is something us human beings don’t tend to like very much, unless it’s our bodies. Changing our bodies to better match society’s expectations no longer depends solely on exercise and good eating habits. Within the past few years, many different approaches have been introduced and many of them are harmful to the actual biology of our bodies.

The newest trendy diet is called biohacking and it’s becoming famous for doing just that, hacking into your body’s systems. This new diet suggests that for 36 hours, all an individual can do is drink water. For three whole days, nothing but water. This diet does not seem very appealing to most at first, but it is being advertised as “the diet all Silicon Valley executives are doing.” This title alone has caused the harmful diet’s popularity to skyrocket.

 Silicon Valley is known to be one of the most successful and innovative areas today. Stating that the CEOs of this area are all actively doing this diet and thriving off of it is very enticing to the rest of the public. According to The Guardian, Phil Libin, CEO of Al Studio All Turtles states that, “regular periods of fasting have made him a better CEO” and also says it is one of the most important things he’s ever done in his lifetime.

The problem with this diet is that food is necessary for a body to function properly. What it comes down to is every process that occurs in the body requires some sort of nutrient, whether it’s a vitamin, mineral or amino acid, water does not provide all the body needs. Although fasting will result in weight loss, it is not the kind of weight that a person wants to lose. 

According to Jo Travers, author of “Low Fat Diet,”  following such a restricted diet causes muscle breakdown, which means losing more muscle than fat. Therefore, fasting for long periods of time will also result in a higher body fat percentage.

Society’s expectation of the human body has gotten to an absolutely outrageous level. Within the past few years, many diets like biohacking have been introduced as well as waist trainers. Waist trainers became popular about two years ago but date back to the 16th century. This product is used to literally train your waist to be smaller and create curves in the abdomen.

These waist trainers are worn as tight as a 1500s style corset and in order to see results, it is required to wear the waist trainer for 10 hours or more. This has caused women to pass out due to lack of air. USA Today spoke with spinal surgeon Paul Jeffords and physician Tasneem Bhatia to talk about waist trainers and their effects.  The doctors agreed that the bad most definitely outweighs the good. Bhatia said, “it just crams all of your organs together. So over a long period of time, wearing it too much and too frequently can cause damage.” 

Doctors advise against waist trainers because its most frequent result is squished and displaced diaphragms, colons, livers, stomachs and intestines that turn into serious medical issues such as infertility. The diet market has a very conniving way of convincing members of society that they need to partake in trendy diets if they want to be considered beautiful. 

Many women look up to reality television stars so waist trainers are heavily advertised and endorsed by them. Waist trainers were endorsed by Snooki, a member of MTV’s television show “The Jersey Shore,” and the Kardashian sisters to name a few. 

Do not allow society to convince you to put your body at risk no matter what celebrity or CEO is doing it.