TOK TO THE SYSTEM

More of us are getting medical advice from social media. But with influencers promoting information that ranges from the misleading to the fraudulent, Helen Coffey investigates why we’re putting our health in the hands of unqualified strangers

- Helen Coffey

“You're so funny-”“

“Thanks when I was 15 I got misdiagnosed with anorexia but at 19 they found out it was actually cancer then I got scammed by a woman who said she could cure it with green juice and now there’s a documentary and a TV show about it on Netflix.”

This is the caption on a recent video from Bella Johnston – selfdescribed “cancer-surviving hot girl who loves doing stuff” – which quickly went viral on TikTok, clocking up 5.4 million views.

Johnston was referencing Belle Gibson, the Australian “wellness” influencer who leapt to fame in the 2010s after claiming to have cured her brain cancer via alternative therapies and a healthy diet. She managed to garner a dedicated Instagram following, launch an award-winning app and publish a topselling cookbook before the entire edifice came crashing down when it was revealed that Gibson did not have – and had never had – a terminal illness.

The stranger-than-fiction story has risen to prominence once more a decade later following a hit Netflix adaptation, Apple Cider Vinegar, starring Kaitlyn Dever.

Johnston was an Australian teenager genuinely battling cancer at the time of Gibson’s ascendance. She underwent radiotherapy and major oesophageal surgery that left her permanently scarred. Constantly exhausted and deeply unwell, Johnston couldn’t help but compare herself to Gibson – and the glowingwith-health selfies that populated her polished Instagram profile – and wonder whether she was being punished for picking conventional medicine over juice cleanses and superfoods.

“I can’t even begin to explain how insane I felt all the fucking time looking at [Gibson’s] feed,” Johnston says in another video. “Like, why was I so ugly? Why was I so tired? … I took that all on personally because I felt it was because I had chosen conventional medicine that all these bad things were happening to me.”