The Psychology Behind Fitness Scams
Food, We Need To Talk
Juna Gjata
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2026
⏱️ 4 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode we continue our conversation with Mark Faries all about why it’s so hard to do the things we know we want to do—and why we keep falling for shiny shortcuts that promise big results with zero effort. Mark breaks down the psychology behind infomercials, fad diets, and “miracle” fitness gadgets using a simple framework that will permanently change how you spot misleading health claims. We talk about why things like the Thigh Master and vibrating belts feel so convincing, where a kernel of truth often hides in bad advice, and how hope gets exploited by marketing. The real takeaway? Your success doesn’t come from a product—it comes from you, and understanding that is incredibly empowering. If you’ve ever felt frustrated, duped, or stuck when it comes to behavior change, this conversation will make you feel seen and smarter about what actually works.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to another episode of the talk. |
| 0:03.6 | Today, we are continuing our conversation with Professor Mark Ferris, |
| 0:07.3 | talking all about why we can't do the things that we actually want to do. |
| 0:11.6 | And how to do them. |
| 0:12.5 | How to actually do them. |
| 0:13.9 | That's what Mark is teaching us. |
| 0:15.9 | Right. |
| 0:16.2 | Well, that's even more important, right? |
| 0:17.9 | So I wanted to ask you a little bit. |
| 0:19.5 | I know that you said that you've studied some of the ways that infomercials and deceptive marketing tricks us into believing in like fad diets, fat exercise programs, stuff like that. Can you talk a little bit about what you've learned about why we're so easily manipulated by like the thigh master or like, you know, the things I sell for your abs. |
| 0:38.3 | Like, I used to always want to buy those ab things online because the only thing I wanted was a flat stomach. Yeah. It's so funny you said thigh master. I actually had a conversation about that thing yesterday. Do you have one? Can we borrow it? It's a key. Yeah. I actually don't even know what it is. Oh, my gosh. You don't even know what it is. No. |
| 0:53.3 | No. |
| 0:53.5 | It's funny you threw that out. |
| 0:56.3 | Yeah, go look at it. |
| 0:57.3 | Okay. |
| 0:57.5 | It was extremely, extremely popular. Now, they're advanced machines in the gym now that have various names that I won't say them on air, but that do this. All right. So I know we don't have much time with this. So I think, and I'm going to put |
| 1:13.5 | on my teaching hat, and I'm going to do this via an acronym. Are you already? Okay. And this is new, |
| 1:18.9 | but I think it's good. So, and it's going to be the word myth. It should be easy. All right. So how |
| 1:24.7 | to spot this stuff. The M is a term we call misattribution. |
| 1:31.1 | Misattribution where I attribute the results to something, but that's not where the results are coming from. |
| 1:37.3 | And so to give you an example, you brought up diet, for example. |
| 1:40.0 | Years ago, there was the blood type diet. |
... |
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