Review of Netflix's Hack Your Health

The film makes one big recommendation

Hi and Happy Thursday!

The other day, Netflix, very smartly, suggested I watch Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut, their new documentary about the gut microbiome. Like Netflix, a number of my friends recommended the same (which is proof that AI really is just as good as friends!)

I was, of course, interested. So, Will and I sat down and watched it…for fifteen minutes, then we stopped, and then we started two nights later for fifteen minutes, and then two more times, because we have two kids and I start going to bed at 8:30.

In case you are in a similar position or just don’t want to watch it, let me give you the gist, and the main actionable recommendation the film offers.

Ugh, the title

I hate that click-baity (watch-baity?) “hack” title. It’s not just that I think the tides have turned on that word—where it once sounded cool it now sounds passé—it’s that “hack” implies ease, efficiency, and fast solutions. Nothing about the gut is easy, simple or fast, and indicating that there’s some “hack” that will suddenly make you healthy is a big part of the problem in our cultural approach to health. We love a quick fix. So that title bugs me. (Get it? BUGS?)

But despite the title, the documentary does not claim there is a fast and easy fix to gut health. Instead, a slew of nerdy-chic scientists share basic information about the gut. If you are someone who has done any reading on the subject, the facts presented will likely be familiar. Things like…

• 70% of the immune system resides in the gut.

• Gut bacteria help train the immunes system during our early years to tolerate certain things and fight off others.

• Gut bacteria produce a number of substances that we need to stay health, and which we can’t produce on our own.

• Having a more diversity of bacteria in the gut generally correlates with better health.

• Gut dysbiosis (too much or too little of certain species) can be linked to many ailments, from irritable bowel syndrome, to diabetes, to Parkinson’s Disease.

• High fiber foods (typically unprocessed, whole, plant-based foods) travel through the gut more slowly and feed a wider variety of bacteria.

• If you eat more sugar, you get more sugar-loving bacteria. If you eat more vegetables, you get more bacteria that eat vegetable fibers.

The scientists in the documentary throw out these types of statements in quick succession, kind of like that list, and with little scientific backing. Even having heard all of this many times before, I felt a bit of whiplash. Whoa, ok, pause, can you talk a little more about that? What exactly does it mean that you will “get more sugar-loving bacteria?” How does that work exactly? What research has been done? Will, a scientist at heart, would have probably walked out if not for his love for me and my interests.

So, I wanted more from the film. But that said, I think the facts were sound and scientifically backed, even if the science wasn’t presented. The documentarians opted for an overview that is more accessible and less deep, and while I personally wanted more science, I also came away feeling like it’s cool that someone decided these topics might be interesting to a whole lot of viewers on Netflix who aren’t gut nerds (🙋).

So, how do you hack your health?

Basically there is one main message in the documentary, which is this:

• Fiber feeds bacteria.

• Different fibers feed different types of bacteria.

• The more and more varied fiber you eat, the more diverse and robust your microbiome will be.

• This generally will contribute to good health in numerous ways.

As a result, the recommendation is to try and eat 20-30 different types of plant fibers per week. I have heard this recommendation before , but only in the corners of the gut world, and now this documentary has proclaimed it loud and proud on mainstream Netflix.

The problem with this “hack” is that it’s, obviously, pretty hard to do for most people, and impossible for many. It’s expensive, it takes time, it requires breaking very hard-to-break habits, and it defies how most people typically eat in our country.

I think that the film glosses over this fact a bit. The hopeful tone at the end—”just eat more fiber!”—feels a little jaunty relative to the reality. While it’s an important message, it needs to be paired with a discussion about the structural and cultural features that make it difficult to eat thirty different vegetables a week (industrialized agriculture, overstretched nuclear families, food deserts, extreme availability of addictive food options, and so on). Otherwise, it can become easy to blame the individual for just not eating enough fiber.

So there ya go, my thoughts. With that, you’ve got the goods from the film, and you can probably skip it. Though there were the very cute portrayals of bacteria using claymation, but using felt (?!). Adorable!

See you soon,

—Rachel

P.S. In case you missed it, check out my recent paid posts, like this one about dealing with nasty people, and this one about how I suddenly lost all my ambition. To get access and support Inner Workings, you can upgrade for 20% off here.