- The 2010s involved plenty of changes that affected the way we view and pursue nutrition, exercise, sexual health, lung health, and more — for better or worse.
- Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness brand Goop helped make pseudoscience more mainstream, fitness trackers changed how we exercise, and marijuana legalization destigmatized the drug.
- These are health revelations, innovations, and movements from the past decade that changed how we live now — for better or worse.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more.
After thousands of Americans were hospitalized for vaping-related illnesses, many resulting in death, it became startlingly clear the habit isn't safe.
In April 2019, a spate of mysterious vaping-related illnesses began to crop up across the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration scrambled to find what exactly was causing these life-threatening reactions.
As of November 14, 2019, at least 42 people have died and 2,172 people have become ill due to the condition, which the CDC now calls EVALI, or e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury.
Officials now believe a filler ingredient used in some THC- and nicotine-containing vapes called vitamin E acetate could be to blame for the widespread hospitalizations and deaths.
Until these illnesses cropped up en masse, though, many people considered vaping a safer alternative to smoking nicotine-containing products.
Now that notion is shattered, and research has suggested that the behavior may even be more likely to lead to lung disease than smoking in some cases. Companies like Juul that sell popular flavor-containing vape juices and vape devices are now taking a financial hit.
The Trump administration has also called for bans on flavored vape products that many consider targeted toward teens, while the pro-vape contingent argues that quality vape products from trusted sources are an exception to the vape crisis and have helped countless people quit traditional smoking.
Nonetheless, it's clear vaping isn't risk-free like it was once thought to be.
Gluten-free products became ubiquitous, giving people with celiac disease more options but the ingredient an undeserved bad name.
Gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, can sometimes cause serious allergic reactions for people with celiac disease, including digestive problems and intestinal damage.
But even people without the disease are now avoiding gluten, including those who believe they have non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which remains poorly understood in the medical community.
Others have simply shunned the ingredient in hopes of losing weight or gaining energy, despite the shaky evidence behind a gluten-free diet for those benefits.
Nevertheless, gluten-free options have skyrocketed, which is great news for people with celiac disease.
The gluten-free boon is also representative of broader trend this decade: People experimenting with their diets to find out what works best for their bodies, sometimes by cutting out various food groups (like elimination diets) or sticking to certain principles for a set period of time (the Whole30).
On the downside, fads like these have led to unnecessary fears of adverse reactions to certain foods, such as accidentally eating meat if you're vegan, or cutting out foods simply because they've been labeled "bad" on the internet. Those fears can lead to disordered eating or even dangerous eating disorders in vulnerable people.
Unless you have specific allergies or dietary restrictions, there's no need to cut gluten or other ingredients out of your diet. Nutritionists recommend eating a wide variety of whole foods for optimal health.
Researchers published the first studies on the effects of screen time on the brain, contributing to concerns about how devices affect health.
Over the past decade, screens from computers, smartphones, tablets, and other sources have become an inextricable part of most people's lives.
To better understand how these technologies have changed our brains, researchers have launched and published studies exploring just that.
One of them, a first-of-its-kind study from the National Institutes of Health, is currently analyzing how screen time affects children's brains. Over the next decade, the study will follow more than 11,000 children, who are currently 9 to 10 years old, as they grow up around screens.
Early results have found that as little as two hours of screen time daily could negatively affect children. In fact, the study found that children who have more than two hours of screen time a day got lower scores on tests focused on thinking and language skills. Other research has linked screens to delayed motor skills and poor problem-solving skills.
As a result of these concerns, the American Academy of Pediatrics released new screen-time guidelines for children that stress the importance of face-to-face communication and suggest parents avoid screen time for toddlers between the ages of 18 and 24 months, with the exception of video calling.
The guidelines also suggest parents accompany young children whenever they are using screens. "Co-viewing is best when possible and for young children they learn best when they are re-taught in the real world what they just learned through a screen," the guidelines noted.
In 2012, California and Washington states became the first to legalize recreational marijuana. The substance has been increasingly destigmatized.
As of 2019, 11 states have legalized recreational marijuana use for people who are 21 years or older, and 33 states have legalized the substance for medical purposes as more research suggests the drug can help people deal with chronic pain, anxiety, and depression.
These changes came 80 years after the federal government made marijuana illegal, which it still is on a federal level.
The legalization of recreational marijuana has largely destigmatized the substance. Now, people are more accepting of use cannabis for anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.
According to a recent Pew poll, 67% of Americans think marijuana should be legal, and 91% support making medical marijuana legal. Opposition to legalized marijuana has fallen from 52% in 2010, to just 32% as of November 15.
Additionally, more research on the long-term health effects of the drug is being completed, giving researchers and consumers clearer ideas about how marijuana can change their lives for better and for worse.
The shift toward acceptance of marijuana use could also open doors for further decriminalization or descheduling of other mind-altering drugs like LSD and psilocybin that have the potential to treat anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions.
Gwenyth Paltrow launched her website Goop, bringing pseudoscience to the mainstream.
Paltrow's now-popular wellness brand Goop began in 2008 as a nutrition newsletter, but by 2014 Goop had launched an e-commerce business selling products that Paltrow, a now-cemented wellness icon, recommended to readers.
In recent years, Goop.com has published stories giving controversial advice like on inserting jade eggs into the vagina to balance hormones and steaming the vagina, as well as other "health" tips that aren't science-backed and sometimes potentially dangerous.
Nonetheless, Paltrow's icon status brought wellness practices once thought as fringe treatments to the mainstream.
Now, countless other like-minded websites and publications, as well as celebrity endorsements via social media, promote similar concepts to consumers looking for alternatives to conventional medicine in hopes of ageless skin or a flatter stomach.
Today, buying crystals, getting an acupuncture treatment, or getting a vaginal facial are, for many, considered commonplace and healthy.
At the same time, doctors and health experts have challenged some of these recommendations, saying the claims are dangerous to assert when we live in a world where pseudoscience is often mistaken for science-backed medicine.
One gynecologist, Dr. Jen Gunter, even made a name for herself debunking the various claims on Goop.com and explaining how many of these Paltrow-backed recommendations can cause a person more harm than good.
For example, the Goop-approved practice of vaginal steaming can lead to third-degree burns and yeast infections.
One type of manufacturer Allergan's breast implants were linked to a rare form of cancer and subsequently recalled, revealing long-term risks of the devices.
On July 24, 2019, breast implant manufacturer Allergan removed its BIOCELL textured breast implants from the market after the Food and Drug Administration requested the manufacturer do so for safety reasons.
The request came after U.S. health officials urged doctors to stay on the lookout for breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, or BIA-ALCL, a rare form of cancer that's been linked to Allergan's textured breast implants.
In a letter the FDA sent to healthcare providers published in February 2019, the FDA said it wanted to increase awareness of BIA-ALCL, which the administration first reported was linked to implants in 2011. Since then, more research has been published on this link, the letter said.
As of September 2018, the FDA had received 457 unique reports of BIA-ALCL, including nine deaths "which may be attributable" to the cancer, the letter added. It also called for doctors to report any cases of the condition to the FDA.
Currently, research estimates that the incidence of BIA-ALCL in people with implants can vary widely, from 1 in 3,817 patients to 1 in 30,000 patients, the FDA letter said.
The Allergan recall reminded consumers and doctors alike that breast implants, although common, are medical devices with potentially life-threatening side effects.
Some women began pursuing explants, or breast implant removal procedures, and some doctors have even stopped offering breast implants altogether thanks to thousands of women's reports of a mysterious "breast-implant illness" that gave them rashes, nausea, hair loss, and chronic inflammation.
In October, the FDA also urged all breast implant manufacturers to put black box warnings, the most serious type of medical warning, on all breast implants going forward.
Online dating became mainstream, and later, the most common way to meet other singles.
This year alone, an estimated 25 million people regularly used dating apps, but that wasn't always the case.
The first dating apps, Grindr and Scruff, were geared toward gay men and launched in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Tinder, one of the most popular dating apps today for people of all sexualities, followed soon after with a 2012 launch.
These apps were first seen, at least among straight people, as taboo ways to meet other singles, but as more users signed up and used the apps, online dating became, and remains, the most common way to date.
Dating apps have made it safer, in some respects, for queer people to date, since they allow people to identify their sexual preferences and find accurate matches without potentially outing themselves to homophobic hate in their communities or users who have differing match preferences.
At the same time, dating apps have magnified bad behaviors like ghosting and the non-consensual sending of explicit images.
Now, some app startups are betting on old-school dating techniques like face-to-face rendezvous and text-only personal ads to appeal to frustrated modern love seekers.
But relationship experts previously told Insider they're not convinced these methods are going to solve a core issue: Dating can be hard.
Fat, once demonized, became central to some of the most popular and effective diets.
Common knowledge used to dictate that fat makes you fat, and is otherwise bad for your health, but the most current nutrition science has found it's just another category of nutrient.
Where once dieters stuck to low- or no-fat options, the trend has now swung in the opposite direction, with high-fat diets like keto encouraging people to add bacon and butter to their daily meals in order to lose weight and get healthier.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since plenty of high-fat foods are perfectly healthy. However, fat is still more calorie-dense than either carbs or protein, so can have mixed effects on weight loss. In addition, the type of fat matters, since saturated fats are linked to more risks of heart disease and other illnesses than unsaturated fat.
And with the popularity of fat in people's diets, carbs have fallen increasingly out of favor. In some cases, people are hesistant to eat even healthy high-carb foods like fruits, or trying to get their kids to eat extremely low-carb diets, which nutritionists don't recommend.
The long-term effects are of high-fat, low-carb diets aren't yet well understood.
The opioid crisis changed how people manage pain, leading them to solutions including CBD products — now a booming industry.
Opioids in prescription pain medications have caused serious, and deadly, drug addictions across the country. To break the cycle, people are considering alternate methods to manage pain and stress.
Cannabidiol, otherwise known as CBD, has been a growing trend of the past few year, now featured in everything from coffee and tea to body creams and tinctures.
CBD is one of the key compounds in cannabis plants (though it doesn't cause marijuana's characteristic high) and is being touted as a treatment for all kinds of ailments, including pain, stress, anxiety, and sleeplessness.
Lesser-known plant-based substances for pain treatment have also attracted attention, including kava and kratom, both traditional herbal remedies for pain and stress.
All of these substances, however, aren't yet well understood, and it's not clear what the long term health effects might be. Plus, like all supplements, they're poorly regulated and can interact with medications.
People woke up to the costs of eating meat, both for health and for the environment, and plant-based alternatives populated even fast-food menus.
There's growing research that a plant-based diet has all kinds of health benefits, from weight loss to lower risk of diseases to a improved gut health.
At the same time, animal products — and particularly the saturated fats found in red meat — have raised more and more alarm bells for human health.
Plus, studies continue to show that meat-eating has huge consequences for our planet — livestock farming and the meat industry accounts for 18% of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Researchers have found that it's possible to meet human nutrition needs with plant-based foods, and doing so would save approximately 72 million acres of crop land, 6.6 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer, and the equivalent of 280 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year in the U.S.
As a result, everyone from elite athletes to younger generations are giving vegan and vegetarian diets a try.
Food manufacturers are keeping up, with animal-free substitutes for meat, cheese, and milk more popular than ever, even in the fast food world, with the Impossible Burger convincing even meat lovers to try plant versions of their favorite meals.
Technology entered our workouts, with activity trackers and at-home fitness streaming systems transforming the way we work out.
Thanks to FitBits, smart watches, and even our mobile phones, various apps from simple step-counters to high-tech workout tools have become part of many Americans' daily lives.
An estimated 40 million people in the U.S. have a heart rate-monitoring smart watch or tracking device intended activity or manage fitness or weight loss goals, though it's a far from a surefire solution.
Meanwhile, companies that sell high-tech at-home fitness equipment like Peloton and Mirror continue to innovate in the world of fitness tech, bringing customized, on-demand, and live workouts into your living room.
Intuitive eating concepts picked up steam, reforming outdated concepts about dieting.
Despite their continued popularity, more Americans understand that diets don't work, and often backfire.
Nutritionists and other health professionals have tried to fight back against diet dogma with flexible, realistic nutrition guidelines, with a focus on overall health instead of just weight.
One approach called "intuitive eating" emphasizes listening to and honoring your body, and has been shown by evidence to be more effective for overall health than restrictive diets.
It's also led to a closer look at the context of nutritional decisions, including socio-economic factors like how much time and money people can afford to spend on food. Many health experts now believe that a majority solution to the obesity epidemic isn't just getting people to eat less — it's making sure they have access to nutritious foods.
Experts are especially concerned with making sure "diet culture" doesn't target children, since restricted eating habits at a young age have been tied to a higher risk of eating disorders later in life.
Nutritionists say the healthier strategy is for children to learn good eating habits without calorie-counting or stop-light systems that stigmatize certain foods or foods groups.
- Read more:
- The best nutrition trends of 2019 that actually work
- A high-carb, high-sugar diet may be damaging your sleep
- Google revealed the top trending diet searches of 2019, and it included plans from celebrities like J. Lo and Adele