Earlier this month, a TikTok creator (@mango_stickey_rice) posted a video of herself drinking soda through a metal straw. She held her glass cup to the camera to reveal hundreds of tiny chia seeds swirling through her drink. “I don’t play about my fibre intake,” she wrote in the caption. She is, along with many others right now online, “fibremaxxing”. 

A series of trends has led us to the point where people are adding chia seeds to their ice cream or psyllium husk, a soluble fibre supplement, to their cheesecake. Over the past couple of years, the wellness industry seems to have been entirely focused on protein – we’ve been told the epitome of health is chomping on sticks of butter as an “energy bar” and serving slabs of meat on wooden chopping blocks. If you got your nutritional advice entirely from social media (which is never a good idea), you might conclude that you shouldn’t enjoy any meal without loading it with protein powder, cottage cheese or red meat. 

The rise of fibremaxxing indicates an attempt to level set. After all, most people in the US already eat plenty of protein, but 90 to 95 per cent of Americans fall short of their recommended dietary fibre intake. “Fibremaxxing does make for a fun spin on an otherwise seemingly unsexy topic,” says Ayten Salahi, a women’s health and gastroenterology-specialised dietitian based in California. “I’ve never seen someone feel excited about the ‘good source of fibre’ label on a box of oatmeal, for example, but the fibremaxxing trend sort of gamifies the objective a bit and makes it more appealing to the masses.”

So why are so many of us suddenly worried about fibre? One likely reason is a growing awareness that colorectal cancer numbers are rising in young Americans, with 1 in 5  people diagnosed with colorectal cancer now under the age of 55. It’s why creators are making videos of “high fibre food” at the grocery store with the caption, “So y’all don’t get ass cancer”, and why proud “poopmaxxers” are posting their “poopy breakfast”.

”Gut health has been a major wellness topic in recent years, and discussions surrounding the rise in colorectal cancer among younger adults have only increased interest in fibre,” says registered dietitian Mia Syn. Salahi adds that eating adequate fibre and a colourful, plant-forward diet is one of the best ways to prevent colon cancer. Culturally, too, fibremaxxing is likely a reaction to the great protein push, and a challenge to the long-held belief that carbs are bad and lead to weight gain, which we’ve been told through different variations of low-carb diets for decades.

Sharon Lee, a self-confessed fibremaxxer based in LA, started upping her fibre after conversations with her dietician about not being as regular in the bathroom as she would have liked. When starting out, she ate dried chia seeds and quickly learned why that is not recommended (they can cause digestive problems). But, mostly, getting more fibre was easy: she just gradually added broccoli, mango, beans and other fruits and vegetables into her diet. Occasionally, she’ll try a chia seed recipe or “healthy carrot cake” recipe that she sees on social media, but she usually doesn’t like the taste. 

Lee sees fibremaxxers as the direct opposites of proteinmaxxers. “There are a lot of gym bros online who prioritise protein and sometimes protein [content] can feel red pill and Joe Rogan-like, and fibre [content] feels more approachable, granola and easier to digest, physically too,” she says. “It kind of feels like a metaphor for what’s going on in our society and culture right now.” The long-held cultural narrative that meat is essential for masculinity, while vegetable-heavy diets are more “feminine” is a factor here, as the gender and political divide plays out online through a rivalry between meatfluencers and girls eating “poopy snack plates”. Meanwhile, some 18.8 million Americans live in food deserts, where residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious food in general.

“There are a lot of gym bros online who prioritise protein and sometimes protein [content] can feel red pill and Joe Rogan-like, and fibre [content] feels more approachable

Syn calls fibre “one of the biggest nutrition gaps” in the American diet. “Fibre supports digestive health, helps feed beneficial gut bacteria, promotes regular bowel movements, improves satiety and can help support healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels,” she says. “From a dietitian’s perspective, encouraging people to eat more beans, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains is generally a positive shift because these foods provide vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, alongside fibre.” But the internet loves to present nutritional advice in extremes – you don’t need to add chia seeds to everything to hit your daily fibre goals and, according to Syn, you should gradually increase your intake rather than jumping from a low-fibre diet to a high-fibre diet overnight.

Much of the fibremaxxing content online comprises helpful videos of young women eating bananas and avocados to get 35 grams of fibre a day. However, it can quickly veer into videos on how to achieve a “flat stomach” through fibre supplements or digestive gummies. This is common in the “gut health” space, where genuine concerns around stomach health are often met with videos on how to de-bloat and “cleanse”. In these weight loss-focused spaces, those with a low-fibre diet are encouraged to immediately start stuffing themselves with up to 80 to 100 grams of fibre per day, which is what Salahi calls “a surefire way” to trigger awful gastrointestinal symptoms, such as bloating, gas and abdominal discomfort. “Worse still, it’ll set you back and discourage you from eating fibre going forward.” 

Somewhere along the way, amid a sea of cottage cheese and chia seed Diet Cokes, the idea of striving for a “balanced diet” has become lost. “Focusing on one nutrient is trendy because it’s easier to grasp and track than the complexity of a balanced eating pattern,” says Syn. “I think we’d see more balanced conversations if we stopped labelling nutrients as heroes or villains.” But it’s hardly a surprise that young Americans don’t know how and what to eat right now: earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy flipped the old food pyramid, which prioritised grains, on its head, putting protein, full-fat dairy and “healthy fats” at the top, alongside broccoli and peas. At the bottom is a bowl of oats and a chunk of bread, even though carbohydrates are an essential part of a healthy diet. 

How we think about food reflects the culture we exist within, and right now in America, the food pyramid has become a battleground for competing political ideologies. The proteinmaxxing versus fibremaxxing camps illustrate just one gap in how Americans have come to think of health, but it also exposes the growing rift between different philosophy-driven factions of the wellness community. After all, the far right has infiltrated even the most crunchy, granola corners of the wellness world online, using ideas of purity, health and fitness to support and spread white nationalism.

Today’s wellness world frequently positions health not as a balance, but the rigorous and algorithmic pursuit of extreme optimisation. “Most of what is happening now is linked to fascism and white supremacy, which diet culture is just another branch of,” says Dalina Soto, a registered dietitian and the founder of Your Latina Nutritionist and Nutritiously Yours. “When we live in a society that values control and obedience, pushing trends that cause weight loss and make you seem ‘good, pure, and obedient’ causes ultimately good and healthy things to be pushed to the extreme.” 

If you don’t get enough fibre in your daily diet, like most Americans, you’d benefit from upping your intake of fibre-rich foods like fruits and vegetables. But this doesn’t mean you have to fall into the trap of following single-minded dietary advice online. “We live in a society that sees trends like gospel again, forgetting that many of them are not backed by any science,” says Soto. “Fortunately, this fibre trend is, but it has been taken to the extemes.” 

Knowing that the algorithm rewards more extreme content, making extreme diet culture more visible online, it takes intention to remind yourself that your body actually requires a balanced diet, filled with protein, fibre and complex carbohydrates, even if this doesn’t sound sexy. “What’s your gut reaction when you hear the word balance-maxxing? Probably zero excitement. Zero dopamine,” says Salahi. “But we need to doubt the extremes, seek out the voices that communicate nuance and balance, and skip the content with shirtless bros demonising ingredients at the grocery store.”