The face of wellness is changing. Once, it was a slim young woman in yoga wear sipping a green smoothie. She was probably vegan and into the environment. Today, it is just as likely to be a middle-aged man dripping blue fabric dye into his (fluoride-free) water. He is probably carnivorous and can take or leave the environment.

Men have taken over wellness, with their biohacking, elaborate morning routines, and supplement stacks. Now, health “advice” is just as likely to come from US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, podcaster Joe Rogan, or their acolytes as from Gwyneth Paltrow or any “yoga-mum”.

Amid some more legitimate fixations, such as encouraging healthy eating and exercise, regulating screen time and ultra-processed foods, some of them peddle the types of misinformation to make the fiercest of the alternative health facts crowd proud.

Wellness pin-up boy du jour is RFK, who is not averse to showing off his ripped physique on social media. The 71-year-old reckons that seed oils are poisoning us (he has a cute range of merch emblazoned with the “conversation-starting” slogan “Make Frying Oil Tallow Again”); he thinks Lyme disease is likely to be an engineered bioweapon; that fluoride makes us dumb; that vaccines cause autism and revolutionary mRNA vaccines aren’t worth backing.

He has also convinced others in the wellness-sphere, including Rogan, of the virtues of methylene blue, a fabric-dye-cum-medicine for treating rare blood disorders. Why? There is scant evidence to support it and, experts warn, consuming the chemical can come with severe risks, but proponents believe it can improve mitochondrial function.

RFK’s stance on apple cider vinegar is unknown – a video of him claiming it cures diabetes appears to be fake, however, many of his health beliefs intersect with those of traditional female wellness influencers.

In fact, he is leading a “Make America Healthy Again” commission reporting on the causes of chronic illnesses in the United States. The commission is made up of an unusual coalition of crunchy mums, environmentalists, and “manly” men’s rights influencers, according to the New York Times.

The influence of Paltrow, the subject of a headline-grabbing new biography, Gwyneth, and her Goop business, on the rise of the wellness influencer should not be underestimated. As Dr Jen Gunter, a source for the book, told Vanity Fair: “Goop walked so all these people profiting from wellness on Instagram and TikTok could run.”

But something has shifted at a cultural level.

In many ways, the nuances and subtleties of our views were lost during the COVID pandemic when debate about health advice became more polarised. An unlikely “horseshoe” alliance was formed between far-left wellness communities and far-right conservative/populist communities.

The pandemic was a time when, according to an Australian Human Rights Commission’s report, many people’s trust in the government eroded because of a “lack of transparency, fairness, compassion and proportionality”. It created fertile ground for alternative health ideas.

“[The] ‘alternatives’ often promoted really taps into the idea that institutions can’t be trusted, and we have to find our own solutions,” says Dr Simon Copland, a researcher at the Australian National University.

“Progressive/wellness communities and conservative/populist communities might have arrived there via different routes but found common ground in anti-vaccine opinions,” adds Adam Dunn, a professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Sydney.

Both extremes were united not just by their opinions on vaccination, but by their scepticism of Big Food and Big Pharma, a philosophy that natural is best, and the call for freedom of choice.

As these ideas flourished, social media provided an echo chamber, reinforcing their sense of righteousness and amplifying their profiles within and without the wellness-sphere. Controversy often equated to more clicks as well as more exposure outside their original sphere of influence.

“For example, I have never seen Joe Rogan except when he is being discussed by people who disagree with him,” Dunn says.

Meanwhile, the pandemic also accelerated the rise of another group of men within the wellness-sphere: those within the manosphere.

An international network of social media influencers and communities, the manosphere promotes male supremacy and antifeminist ideologies.

It sells a version of masculinity that celebrates attributes such as wealth, the accumulation of luxury items, the pursuit of women, and a jacked body.

The manosphere capitalised on the wavering of trust in “mainstream” health, says Dr Stephanie Wescott, from Monash University’s School of Education, Culture and Society.

“Men’s takeover of wellness is an evolution within the manosphere, which is about optimisation of the self, a fixation on individual success and betterment, and a refinement of the image of optimal masculinity,” she says.

She sees the manosphere’s creep into wellness as related to but not the same as “bro science”. They both position men as “superior knowers” whose knowledge overrides traditional institutions.

The manosphere, however, sits alongside the “tradwife” phenomenon, where women are depicted as linen-wearing, organic produce-growing homemakers.

There is a desire in the manosphere and tradwife worlds to choose a theoretically autonomous existence that is separate from women’s empowerment and the mainstream, Wescott says.

“So, there is a return to ‘traditional’ gender roles, with an adjacent spruiking of regressive lifestyle ideals,” she says. “In relation to men, they are often embodying the regressive masculine ideal of the ‘provider’: strong, successful and wealthy.”

Tie in the premise that you can take your health “into your own hands” using knowledge that has been gate-kept by mainstream institutions, and there is a status in both having this knowledge and being the bestower of it, Wescott says.

Whether the knowledge being bestowed is legitimate or not – and the wellness-sphere contains both legitimate and bunk advice – appears irrelevant. What is relevant is that those giving advice seem to have absolute conviction that they are right, regardless of the evidence.

“What’s interesting is a lot of people who have that view of ‘natural equals best’ are now promoting things like methylene blue,” says The Proof podcaster and nutrition scientist Simon Hill.

“I’m just not sure that there’s a lot of logical consistency there. I don’t fully understand what the motivation is other than the fact that, hey, there are huge profits up for grabs in the wellness space.”

The men’s wellness market has boomed in the last five years and is worth roughly $140 billion globally. Research by consulting firm McKinsey suggests that the power influencers have to drive purchases varies, but up to 55 per cent of consumers are swayed by their advice.

The potential for profit may be what truly unites men and women from opposing ideological and political camps, Dunn suggests. “Influencers may just be capitalising on an opportunity even if these products are not aligned with their interests or values,” he says. “Wellness may be a relatively easy market to get into because of lower levels of regulatory barriers and businesses in the area may be less fussy about who they work with for marketing.”

Being encouraged to be more physically active, eat more whole foods or to “optimise” themselves hardly seems like a negative. The danger comes when people are swayed by influencers whose social media algorithms are rewarded when they act in increasingly extreme ways.

“The risks of this dynamic, for both the viewers and creators, are very real,” writes Samuel Cornell, a PhD candidate in the School of Population Health at UNSW, in The Conversation.

“They range from hormone damage, to mental and physical decline, to injury, and even death. But there is also a deeper ideological harm, as young men are fed a narrow and punishing idea of what it means to be a man.”

What’s being sold, he argues, is pseudo-stoicism: “A term researchers have coined to describe emotional suppression masquerading as strength and discipline.”

Whatever the motive or gender of the influencer, the people being influenced are seeking answers to valid problems.

Traditionally, women have turned to alternative health and wellness to fill the void created by mainstream medicine’s neglect of their health needs. Now, boys and men may turn to the manosphere to fill the void created by loneliness and disenfranchisement.

“Even if it doesn’t actually make people feel better, it gives them a sense of control and power over their lives,” says Copland. “We live in a really individualistic society that teaches us that we solve all our problems by ourselves ... when people are trying to navigate difficult issues … simple solutions like going to the gym, or cleaning your room, or whatever, are appealing.

“The manosphere is a response to many of the challenges men [as with all of us] face in the world at the moment. What the manosphere does really well is create a narrative that explains to men what the problem is with the world – feminism/women – and how men can navigate through these problems, which is to fix themselves.”

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.