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“Skinny” is such an outdated concept; too diet culture for 2025. “Flat belly” sounds better, but we’re tired of that, too. What is the trend-dependent online influencer culture to do? Enter “gut health,” the current euphemism for having a thin waist—this time with extra wellness baggage. It sounds like it’s all about a science-based journey toward better nutrition, but really it’s more bullshit. So let’s explore the most questionable gut health hacks out there. Grab a towel, because it’s time for your internal shower!
Taking an ‘internal shower’
The “internal shower” is meant to clean you from the inside. The metaphor evokes more than just relieving constipation, and implies that your guts are dirty and need to be made sparkling clean. That’s not how gut health works—things should keep moving, sure, but there’s no need to fully clean everything out unless you’re preparing for a colonoscopy (which has its own protocol).
Though “internal shower” sounds fancy, it’s really just a drink that contains two full tablespoons of chia seeds, plus a squeeze of lemon. Chia seeds swell in water, forming a lumpy, gel-like texture. (This is both what makes them good in pudding, and what allows them to adhere to the terra-cotta planters of Chia Pet fame.)
So why drink them? Well, they’re high in fiber, and you also consume a glass of water in the process. In other words, it’s a trendier version of Metamucil. Be warned: the sudden increase of fiber in your diet can lead to bloating and diarrhea if you’re not used to it, but isn’t likely to be harmful otherwise.
Avoiding cheese
It’s true that a diverse diet with plenty of plant foods is probably better for your gut than a crappy diet—but not for any game-changing, gut-specific reason. Your gut is healthy when your body is healthy, and a varied diet involving fiber and other nutrients is good for your gut microbes and for the rest of you. This amounts to “eat your vegetables,” and is thus not an exciting viral tip.
Gut health advice often gives you a list of foods not to eat, or demonizes specific foods. There are no common foods known to be particularly destructive to gut health—we’re built to handle just about anything—but influencers often target processed foods and dairy foods. This means that cheese has emerged as a mythically problematic food, when in fact it’s probably fine—and some studies suggest that it may even be particularly beneficial.
Taking L-glutamine
The pursuit of “gut health” has led influencers to tell you that you need to go out and get some L-glutamine (available in any store’s supplement aisle) to heal or prevent your leaky gut. Some of these videos include actual scientific facts about what we understand glutamine to do in the body. But that itself should set off alarm bells: When somebody talks about the mechanism of how something is supposed to work, without presenting data on whether it actually works for the intended outcome, chances are you’re on the wrong path.
L-glutamine is an amino acid that our body can usually make for itself. There is evidence that supplementing it is helpful for people with serious bowel diseases, sepsis, injuries like extensive burns, and immune disorders. The Canadian Society for Intestinal Research notes that you should consult a physician if you think you have conditions serious enough to affect your body’s ability to make enough glutamine.
Anything called an “elixir”
There’s an incredible depth and breadth of “gut health elixir” recipes available on TikTok and other platforms. There are gut health elixirs with aloe juice and coconut water, or with olive oil and lemon, or with hibiscus and kombucha, or with turmeric and ashwagandha. What do any of these have in common? Gut health, of course. What a silly question.
Washing our fruit (for gut health)
Washing your fruit is fine. Believing that unwashed fruit is the only thing standing between you and a snatched stomach—that I can’t get behind. The idea is that fresh produce has pesticides on it, and those pesticides are killing your good gut bacteria.
It is a good idea to rinse fruit before you eat it, but there’s no link between the barely-detectable trace amounts of pesticides on fruit and the health of your gut or the size of your waistline. This isn’t a gut health tip, it’s just sensible food prep.
Pilates (for gut health)
Pilates is low-key strength training. It can be good for you, as almost any exercise can, but it doesn’t work miracles. I’ve already covered the trend of TikTok influencers making up imaginary benefits of Pilates, but “gut health” is a stretch. Influencers claim (as in this video) that the breathwork and twisting motions of Pilates “massage” your gut to cure constipation, sometimes also referencing the complete myth that we have pounds of “stuck” poop inside our guts.
What do you think so far?
Eating 30 plants a day
I actually like this as a hack for increasing the diversity of your diet: count up the number of plant species you eat each week, and aim to get more than you currently do. Lettuce and tomato on your sandwich? Add the wheat from the bun and you’re already up to three. This idea got its start with research from the American Gut Project, which found people who ate a more varied diet had a more diverse gut microbiome—although there is no specific link to health, and scientists still haven’t found a way of determining what a “healthy” microbiome looks like.
But all of that has mutated quite a bit on social media. In one clip I remember watching, the narrator tells us that the difference between her before and after pictures is not due to “cardio and a restrictive diet.” But she has clearly lost fat. Gut health is just the new code word for losing fat. Nearly every one of the videos I’ve highlighted here starts with a before-and-after of somebody’s soft, then toned, tummy. If it were really about “bloating,” you’d be able to see the same abs in both pictures.
Going for a walk every morning
Walks are good! Morning routines are good! And it’s true that your gut has its own “clock” for telling what time it is. Some influencers get it backwards, though, when they suggest getting morning light to set your gut’s clock. In truth, the gut sets its clock based on when you feed it. If you want to set your gut’s clock in the morning, try eating breakfast. Like a whole, actual breakfast, not a glass of lemon water.
Going for a walk may help your digestion—that’s the whole idea of the “fart walk,” a walk taken after dinner that may relieve feelings of bloating and that can also help your body to control glucose levels. Feel free to take one after breakfast instead of waiting until dinnertime.
Oil pulling
This old thing? (I need to stop being surprised when old health trends make a comeback.) Oil pulling is when you swish coconut oil around your mouth, sometimes for up to 20 minutes, in addition to (or in place of) brushing your teeth. It’s not particularly good at that job, and there’s no reason to believe it will do anything for your gut health or your abs.
Chewing
Another archaic one that keeps popping up. The idea of over-chewing your food always reminds me of that scene in The Road to Wellville where the dining hall erupts in a chorus of “Chew chew chew, that is the thing to do/Chew chew chew, good food is good for you.”
Yes, your mouth produces salivary amylase to help break down your food. But there is plenty of amylase in your small intestine as well. Studies have shown potential, subtle effects of extended chewing on satiety (how hungry you feel), but the idea that you’ll get a TikTok flat belly by spending more time chewing is unsupported.