One dreary November Monday as I was enjoying a morning cup of tea, my phone alerted me that my cat, Avalanche, was exercising less than usual. For the past six weeks, Avalanche has worn a sleek black-and-gold collar that tracks her every move—when and how often she sleeps, runs, walks, eats, drinks, and even grooms. This notification told me that her energy was lower than typical, so I should keep an eye on her food and water intake. As a veteran hypochondriac, I wondered for a second whether this might be the first sign of some horrible and serious condition.…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s personal health-care routine is perplexing in its inconsistencies. He decries seed oils, despite near scientific consensus that they’re harmless; drinks raw milk, which has been proved to get people sick; and takes testosterone as part of his anti-aging routine while insisting he’s not on anabolic steroids. Some of his routines, such as downing raw milk for its purported health benefits, are based on bunk science. But his anti-aging protocol seems to be serving him well, even if its most obvious effects look a lot like juicing. While many men in their 70s are focused on staving…

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. A few years ago, West Virginia, which has the highest obesity rate in the nation, quietly began a small and unusual pilot program that would touch hundreds of lives: It started covering obesity drugs for state employees—even as many other insurers balked at what they considered expensive “vanity” drugs. The program was, by health measures, a success. Patients shed as much as 120 pounds, their cholesterol dropped, their prediabetes faded, and they cut down on blood-pressure meds. As word began to spread, more…

In 1829, the Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham invented a cracker made from coarse wheat that he believed would help restore American health. He lamented the “miserable trash” that made up the average diet, especially white bread, and thought his eponymous crackers would curtail masturbation, which he deemed deleterious to both moral and physical well-being. (As someone who condemned sweet treats, he would have seen the s’more as an abomination.) Graham was, in many ways, what we might today call a wellness influencer. Nineteenth-century Americans opened Grahamite boarding houses so that travelers could eat his chaste and bland foods, and catch…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has some thoughts about Ozempic. According to the nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, the government should not provide the drug for millions of Americans, but instead address obesity and diabetes by handing out organic food and gym memberships. Like many of RFK’s statements, these ideas have elicited some outrage. Their basic premise, though—that Americans should control their weight by eating better and getting exercise—could not be more mainstream. But this commonsense philosophy of losing weight, as espoused by RFK, the FDA, and really almost any doctor whom you might have asked…