In partnership with
Proof & Practice is a health newsletter that bends with your life instead of breaking. Every Saturday, I share what the science says, the principle behind it, and the tools and skills to apply it your way — so your health habits finally stick. No perfection required. From a board-certified lifestyle medicine clinician.
Hello, my friends!
Last week I wrote about bogus supplements. Today we’ll zoom out a bit and talk about wellness scams.
Nobody is too smart to fall for one. The wellness industry hires the best persuasion talent on earth, and your skepticism isn't enough.
A patient I'd been working with came to our next session glowing. He'd found a magnetic device on TikTok that was going to “cure” his joint pain. It said doctors don’t even know about this one.
He hadn't done the home exercises we locked in the week before. Because he spent those hours researching this miracle device.
I asked him to show me the product's website.
I looked at it and boom! Red flag after red flag after red flag. Oh, there’s a discount code too!
So our session was spent clearing up the misconceptions.
Much of my professional and personal life has been spent myth-busting: in my coaching program, my clinic, my family and friends, and now online.
My DMs are full of the same question, just different products: "Is this [insert wellness product] legit?"
I worry for them. Because they could really spend those hours, attention, and money on things that matter more for their health. Which actually cost less.
As people depend on me to research and debunk for them for years, I unintentionally developed a skill called prebunking. It helped me spot and protect myself from wellness bogus.
Today I want to transfer some of that skill to you. We're covering three things:
What prebunking is and why it works
5 red flags that signal a wellness scam in seconds
A free playbook I built to protect your focus from the wellness noise
What is prebunking?
Misinformation researcher Matthew Facciani describes it this way:
Instead of trying to debunk misinformation after it spreads, which turns into an endless game of whack-a-mole, prebunking gives people the tools to recognize and resist misinformation before they're even exposed to it.
Prebunking is the opposite of debunking.
Debunking happens after you've already seen the bad information and believed it. Someone has to come along and unwind the belief, which is hard — believe me. (My fellow clinicians here would know that feeling.)
How so? Because you've already made the mental commitment. And most of us hate being wrong.
In practice, prebunking has two moves.
Warn the person that a particular kind of manipulation is coming.
Then show them how it works.
Why prebunking works
The idea goes back to social psychologist William McGuire in the 1960s. He called it inoculation theory.
Expose someone to a weakened version of a manipulation tactic, the same way a vaccine exposes you to a weakened version of a virus, and the mind builds antibodies. Next time you meet the real thing, you're already resistant.
Researchers at Cambridge have tested this for years. Their 2022 study ran short prebunking videos as YouTube ads to nearly 30,000 people.
People who watched were significantly better at spotting manipulation in real social media content, across cultures, education levels, and political beliefs.
That's the science. Now let's use it.
5 red flags that mean walk away
When you see any of these in a wellness pitch, slow down. When you see 2 or more, walk away.
The Panacea Pitch. One product claims to fix many unrelated things. Energy, sleep, joint pain, focus, immunity, mood. Real medicine targets one mechanism. A cure-all targets your wallet.
The Miracle Quick Fix. Rapid results promised for complex problems. 30 days. 14 days. Overnight. Health conditions take years to develop. They don't reverse in 14 days. The faster the timeline, the more likely it's bogus.
The Word Salad. Quantum, bio-resonance, frequency, proprietary blend, bioavailable. Scientific-sounding language with no scientific meaning in a consumer wellness context. If you can't define the word and a quick search shows it's mostly used by sellers and not by scientists, that's your answer.
The Natural Equals Safe Trap. Marketing leans on the word "natural" as proof of safety. Arsenic is natural. Hemlock is natural. The category tells you nothing about whether something is safe or effective.
The Fear-then-Sell Funnel. The first 10 minutes of the video scare you about a hidden threat. The last 2 minutes pitch the product that fixes it, conveniently with a promo code. If you separate the fear from the sale, the scam doesn't work. They have to live in the same piece of content.
I built you a free playbook
Consider it a gift and a tool. ❤️ It's a compilation of sources I've accumulated over the years. Curated and summarized by me.
What I showed you above are only 5 of 7 red flags.
The playbook has the other 2, plus 10 logical fallacies, a marketing language decoder, 8 scam categories, an AI prompt that runs the whole analysis for you in 30 seconds, and scripts for declining your aunt's MLM (multi-level marketing) pitch without ruining the relationship.
Health literacy is a requirement for building real health. Prebunking is one of those skills.
I know that a lot of you signed up for this newsletter to learn how to be consistent with your health habits. But we need to know which things to be consistent about. Are they rooted in science or bogus?
Consistency in the wrong things will delay your progress. Or worse, harm you. And even if you're already doing the right habits, the wrong things could still distract you from them.
Get the free playbook here:
And if you have a family member or friend who keeps falling for this stuff, forward them this email. The wellness industry counts on the loneliness of getting fooled. We can fix that.
Protect your focus, your energy, and your resources.
To clearer feeds and stronger fundamentals,
Grazelle 🌱
BEFORE YOU GO
When you're ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:
1. The Dial Method — Get a consistency system that works on your worst weeks, not just your best ones. Five levels across five health pillars. Adjust instead of restart.
2. The Plant-Based Fast-Start for Busy Professionals — Get the no-perfection playbook for eating more plants without overhauling your life. Built for full schedules, not ideal weeks.