Author Spotlight
Phoebe Hendon
Non-medicinal wellness products aren’t new — they’ve existed in varied forms dating as far back as ancient Sumerians 5,000 years ago. But these products have seen a surge in popularity and media attention in recent years.
At first look, the concept isn’t harmful. But Rae, a women’s wellness company founded by two former Target executives, has shown the internet — and East students who’ve become hooked on their products — how the idyllic promises of corporations don’t always come to fruition. Even if you flavor them like raspberries.
When Rae launched, creators Angela Tebbe and Eric Carl set out to create a series of wellness products for women to help them “feel [their] best all day, every day.” Their products, packaged in earth tones with buzz words like ‘rebalance,’ ‘vegan,’ ‘boost’ and ‘gluten-free’ claim to deliver results. But for one of Rae’s products in particular, their Raspberry Metabolism Drops, the legitimacy of results has been heavily debated.
In small print at the bottom of Rae’s website reads a disclaimer: “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.” Without FDA approval, Rae’s claims to consumers about benefits mean nothing. These aren’t backed up by any doctor or professional — they come straight from companies like Rae and their marketing teams.
Rae offers a number of wellness products through their website and stores like Target and Walgreens, but their brand gained attention after videos teen girls posted on TikTok went viral, talking about the ‘metabolism booster’ in its beautifully-packaged bottle. The drops’ internet exposure was how most of its users came to hear of them, including senior Brooklyn Manning.
“I was at Target with my friend and she was like, ‘oh, I saw this TikTok trend, the Rae Metabolism Drops, we should probably go find some cause it’s skinny season’ and I was like, ‘well, yeah okay,’” Manning said. “It was kind of a bandwagon thing.”
East students who’ve used the drops generally had the same consensus — the drops can give the appearance of benefit, but they’re not a solution to those who wish to lose weight and have it last.
“If it does anything it takes the water weight out of you, which isn’t a real result,” junior and metabolism drop user Clara Von Drehle said.
Some even believe the drops might have more of a psychological effect than physical. On the mornings Manning added the drops to her water, she believed she was doing something healthy, leading her to decisions that carried throughout the day. When deciding on what to have for lunch, she’d opt for a salad over a burger, and when she had free time after school, she worked out instead of lounging in bed.
“[Rae Metabolism Drops did] help me feel less bloated … but partially I think it’s because I wasn’t all that hungry, honestly I think it was kind of like a placebo,” Manning said.
After the drops went viral, it didn’t take long for them to become sold out, both in outlets and on Rae’s website. Girls filmed TikToks of them going to local Targets in hopes of finding the drops only to leave empty-handed. When no one could find them on shelves, the buzz eventually quieted down. For a couple of weeks after the initial viral videos, the drops were impossible to find because demand was so high. The high demand had originally led to a mass assumption that the drops actually worked — but as some began to question what truly took them off shelves, the truth was revealed.
“A worker … came and asked what I was looking for, and when I said the [Rae Metabolism Drops], the Target lady was like ‘yeah, they got recalled,’” TikTok user @asiannalex said in a video she made, warning others who use the drops. The video, posted in late February, now has over 498k likes — more than any of the original videos promoting the drops with prasing captions like “perfect for shedding lbs fast” and “let’s get that spring break body!”
Rae had made a silent recall of their metabolism drops, pulling them from the shelves of stores and their website. In a statement released after Rae’s audience came to conclusions on what had actually happened to the drops, they wrote, “We became concerned when we started to notice a conversation emerge: teenage girls misusing the product alongside conversation about weight loss, at times using more than the recommended dose.”
At first glance, Rae’s statement reads like they were admitting their product could bring harm to users. But further in their statement, they continue to say there are “no safety concerns with any of [their] products whatsoever,” and that they chose to recall the drops “simply because [they] feel it’s the right thing to do as a company.”
Some have questioned whether the drops’ virality was organic or an intentional marketing ploy by Rae, but Rae’s PR team continues to reaffirm that not only are their products formulated for adult women, but also exclusively marketed towards adult women — meaning Rae had no connection with the videos, and never intended for the to drops to be in the hands of younger girls. Along with this, Rae has repeatedly argued that not only is their product completely safe to use, but that it works.
For teenagers, advertising and PR can distract from the potential harm FDA-unregulated weight loss products inflict. Brightly-colored boxes and tinted-pink bottles mask possible dangers of metabolism boosters — increased heart rate, high blood pressure, diarrhea, sleeplessness, liver damage and kidney problems, among other things, according to registered dietitian Sarah Grace Meckelberg.
But for some, warnings from those in the medical field like Meckelberg mean nothing — if anything, the threat of severe weight loss or other health issues only reinforces the idea that these products genuinely work. And the search for a satisfactory answer for simple weight loss doesn’t end with the recall of Rae’s drops.
“[My friend and I] tried to find those Rae drops that everyone was getting, but we couldn’t find them. We bought these $10 apple cider vinegar diet pills instead,” an East student, who chose to remain anonymous, said. “They work like a detox, and you’re supposed to take three, twice a day.”
The pills had little to no effect on their actual weight, according to the student, but they later remarked they bought the pills after feeling a need to lose weight for spring break. Like Rae’s drops, the apple cider vinegar pills were also FDA-unapproved — but to those who crave quick fixes, legitimacy doesn’t always matter.
Businesses that sell weight loss products seem to have found their niche in marketing, not in making effective products. Does it truly matter if the juice cleanse plan that promises to help drop 10 lbs in a week works if the packaging looks pretty and the flavors taste nice? Does it make a difference to know the detox pills a famous YouTuber is advertising don’t work if she’s a size 0? Consumers become so desperate for quick fixes that they’ll believe almost anything they’re told.
“I think that for the last, like, 30 years, the diet industry has capitalized off of people’s insecurities,” Von Drehle said. “But what other multi-million dollar industry can you think of that has a 95% failure rate?”
In recent years, the diet industry has made efforts to rebrand itself. In 2018, Weight Watchers changed its name to WW and focuses more on overall wellness. NutriSystem, another dieting program, was acquired by Tivity Health in effort to become less associated with diet culture. The rebrand even extends to social media with the use of influencers promoting products on the behalf of brands who sponsor them.
“When [brands] have influencers who are super gorgeous and have a following … promote [weight loss products] like FitTea — like the Kardashians do — and it’s all people are seeing in their feeds, they’re thinking, ‘oh, I should do this to be thinner, my body is not okay the way it is right now, and I should be changing that,’” Von Drehle said.
For teens, social media influencers cloud the distinction between reliable products and gimmicked cash-grabs. The detox tea you’re ordering with a promotion code from your favorite Victoria’s Secret model is just a laxative, and the cherry-flavored lollipops you bought after seeing Kim Kardashain promote them are just appetite suppressants. Products may catch teenagers’ eye with words like “natural” and “paraben-free,” but they’re all the same — either harmful to your health or ineffective.
Teen girls, including the East students who sought out Rae’s drops, scan isles of Target for products that may or may not force their bodies into molds they were never meant to fit — and often make decisions based on what product would look prettiest in the cabinets of their bathrooms. Producers know this, and are more than willing to take advantage of it.
In order for a product to be successful, it doesn’t matter what its ingredients are, but how it’s packaged and marketed to a target audience, according to eating disorder specialist Whitney Harken. Harken works with Resolve Counseling & Wellness, specializing in counseling adolescents and young adults with eating disorders and mental health problems.
Harken believes keeping any type of diet content out of the feeds of users under certain ages would be a good idea for platforms like Instagram. The constant exposure to a certain figure or body type and the praise those bodies receive can manipulate the standard for a good body in a young person’s mind. It’s this misconception that deters some young people from monitoring their holistic health and instead monitoring the calories they eat per day.
“[Teens] need to open up their idea of what ‘health’ means. To be truly healthy, we need to look at the mind, body and soul — not just how much we’re exercising or what our weight is.” Harken said. “The truth is, when people say ‘I’m overweight,’ I always say ‘over what weight?’”
Harken also encourages teens who question whether their relationship with their body is healthy or if they struggle with disordered eating to open up conversation with their peers. Though she kept her unhealthy eating habits to herself for years, junior Claire Perkins Rock — who used Rae’s Metabolism Drops before their recall — agrees with Harken.
“Everyone is going to support you and everyone is going through it and everyone has something to say, so open up about it and it gets a hell of a lot easier,” Perkins Rock said on the importance of opening dialogue about disordered eating and body dysmorphia. “And don’t use the drops.”
If teenagers want to play the numbers game, Perkins Rock and Harken agree that they should ask themselves how many hours of sleep they’re getting, how many meals they’re eating and how many times a week they’re doing something to relieve stress. Investing themselves in the numbers on the scale or measuring their waist aren’t worth compromising the things in their life that give them joy and purpose.
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