Influencer's Day of 'Clean Drinking' Horrifies Internet

A TikTok influencer's video sharing what she drinks in a day has gone viral, with many fearing that her advice may actually be dangerous. The video, posted by user kendelkay, has been liked on TikTok nearly 200,000 times, and has been widely shared and criticized on Twitter. It shows the influencer drinking a variety of beverages throughout the day, including several liters of water, vitamin infusions, herbal shots, bone broth and an "antioxidant mocktail." "This lady is one vitamin away from complete renal shutdown," wrote user @clicheguevara_ in a comment on the Twitter post. The post received 556 retweets and 2,856 quote tweets. While drinking water is healthy for the body, drinking too much can actually be damaging to your health. "Water intoxication results from drinking too much water. The excess water dilutes sodium in the blood and causes fluids to move inside cells, causing them to swell," Irene Labuschagne, a dietitian and nutritionist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, told Newsweek. "In rare cases, water intoxication can cause swelling in the brain and become fatal. The kidneys can remove 20–28 liters of water per day, but they cannot excrete more than 0.8 to 1.0 liters per hour. Drinking more than this can be harmful." Newsweek has contacted Kendel Kay for comment.

Kendel Kay also shows herself consuming a variety of vitamins and mineral supplements and shots, many of which contain high concentrations of the active ingredient. The pink lemonade pre-workout item that she drinks contains 106 percent of an adult's daily recommended allowance of vitamin C alone, as well as a variety of amino acids, according to the ingredient list. While all of these compounds are known to be healthy in moderate dosages matching the requirements of the body, in excess, they can damage internal organs due to building up at high levels. "The possible adverse effects of overconsumption of vitamins and minerals will depend on the vitamin or mineral and the general state of health," Labuschagne said. "Some micronutrients such as vitamins A and D, are known to be toxic if taken in excess. Undesirable side effects occur at very high intakes of certain water-soluble vitamins. Megadoses of one nutrient can interfere with the bioavailability or metabolism of another nutrient, e.g. zinc supplements may inhibit the absorption of iron or copper." According to Labuschagne, no evidence exists to show that a healthy person following a balanced diet with a variety of food needs a vitamin or mineral supplement. "Supplements must rather be used as a multi vitamin/mineral supplement than combinations of individual vitamins or minerals—it is more economical and prevents the danger of imbalances and interactions among micronutrients. All vitamins and minerals must be considered potentially toxic: amounts above the [recommended allowance] must only be used under medical supervision for specific deficiencies."

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"Clean" eating and drinking, which involves eating lots of greens and avoiding all foods deemed 'toxic,' often those containing carbohydrates, gluten, dairy or processed sugars, has been hugely popular online, especially with teenagers. "However, like with other restrictive diets, this has spurred many to become fixated on maintaining this 'perfect' diet and losing unhealthy amounts of weight, according to NIH's National Library of Medicine. This is defined as an eating disorder in and of itself, orthorexia nervosa, and according to one German 2018 study published in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders (Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity) may affect up to seven percent of people. Orthorexia, according to the National Eating Disorders Association, may involve symptoms including compulsive checking of ingredient lists and nutritional labels, cutting out increasingly large food groups with the exception of a narrow group of foods that are deemed healthy or pure, and showing high levels of distress when these foods aren't available. "Often, the line between healthy eating and orthorexia is rigidity: the majority of teens do not need to 'eat clean' to be healthy," Lisa Ranzenhofer, a clinical psychologist at the Eating Disorder Research Unit/Columbia Doctors, and an assistant professor at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City, told VeryWell Family. "Healthy eating for most adolescents includes regular meals and snacks from a wide range of food groups and types of foods. It is flexible and adaptive depending on the situation." If you or a loved one are coping with an eating disorder, contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) Helpline for support at 1-800-931-2237.