It’s normal to want a cleaner, healthier life for your family. But some moms are being driven to paranoia

“I’m so overwhelmed.”

That’s how a recent post in a Facebook group for “Crunchy Moms” began. The new mother wrote that her eyes were finally open to “what a toxic world we live in,” but instead of feeling empowered, she felt paralyzed. There was simply too much to worry about.

If you’ve spent any time at a playground lately, you’ve met a version of her.

There’s an old joke: “How do you know someone is vegan or does CrossFit? Wait 30 seconds, and they’ll tell you.”

The same could now be said for a certain strain of hyper–health-conscious motherhood. Within moments, you’ll hear about seed oils, microplastics, red dye, EMFs, fluoride, nonstick pans, pesticides, synthetic fabrics and whatever new chemical menace is trending on Instagram.

The Make America Healthy Again movement tapped into something real. When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined the Trump campaign, suburban mothers who felt ignored by public health authorities suddenly felt seen. The MAHA energy helped fuel a winning coalition, and in return, President Trump handed RFK Jr. the reins at the Department of Health and Human Services.

For many moms, it felt like one of their own was finally in charge.

But alongside legitimate concerns about transparency and corporate influence, something darker has flourished: a culture of paralyzing anxiety.

The Facebook mom’s list was dizzying — lead, fluoride, seed oils, microplastics, pesticides, preservatives, clothing materials, microwaves, dyes, toys, phones, air fryers, cookware. The list, she wrote, goes on and on. It always does.

I know so many women living like this, and it’s heartbreaking. Conversations with them quickly turn into anxiety transfers. They want to walk you through the newest study, the newest toxin, the newest thing you should be afraid of.

I’ve learned to gray rock — polite nod, minimal engagement. Take your anxiety elsewhere; I’m living a good life.

There are plenty of things in this world that aren’t ideal. But living in a constant state of low-grade panic isn’t living.

What’s striking — and uncomfortable to say out loud — is that the women most fixated on eliminating every environmental threat are often the least well. They are living with a mosaic of mysterious ailments: autoimmune flares, digestive disorders, chronic fatigue and hormonal chaos. Each new symptom gets attached to the toxin of the month.

But chronic stress itself is a powerful physiological force.

When the body’s stress response never powers down, cortisol and adrenaline keep coursing through the system. Blood pressure rises. Sleep suffers. Immunity weakens. Muscles stay tight. Digestion falters. Anxiety feeds more anxiety. Over time, the wear and tear becomes its own health crisis.

I once had a chiropractor who embodied this phenomenon. She was wonderful at cracking my back when I was pregnant; genuinely skilled. But every appointment turned into a seminar on hidden dangers. Gluten was evil. Dairy was destroying fertility. Certain foods and behaviors, she confidently informed me, led to unnecessary C-sections. Household products were endocrine disruptors.

At first, I tried to listen politely. Eventually, I stopped listening to most of it. And finally, I stopped going altogether. The knot in my back was easier to tolerate than the mental knot that came from absorbing a weekly dose of dread. It was exhausting pretending to care.

Reality was hard to ignore: She had struggled with infertility and delivered via C-section. I, meanwhile, did all the supposedly “bad” things: I eat gluten and dairy and don’t obsess over every ingredient, and yet somehow, I got pregnant six times and had six natural births.

That doesn’t make her foolish or malicious; it makes her human. She was trying to heal her own pain by constructing a worldview where suffering could be prevented if only the right variables were controlled. If infertility or birth trauma blindsides you, the promise that it was caused by something identifiable — and therefore avoidable — is deeply comforting.

The problem is projection.

She works with vulnerable women: pregnant mothers, women trying to conceive — women who are already anxious. I had the experience and confidence to quietly filter what I was hearing, but many don’t.

When a trusted health professional frames everyday life as hazardous, that message sticks. It embeds itself in pregnant and postpartum brains already primed for vigilance. 

There is wisdom in pushing for cleaner food and greater accountability. There is nothing wrong with reading labels or filtering water. But there is a profound difference between prudence and paranoia.

A life organized entirely around threat detection changes a person. It narrows her world, and it robs her of peace. It implicitly teaches her children that the world is hostile and fragile.

Ironically, that chronic sense of danger may be far more damaging than the trace amounts of whatever chemical is currently trending on social media.

Resilient families have always been built in imperfect conditions. Our grandparents raised healthy children with far fewer controls and far less information. They focused less on eliminating every possible risk and more on building strong bodies, strong habits and strong communities.

You can swap your cookware. You can buy organic strawberries. You can eliminate red dye. But if your nervous system never stands down — if your home hums with constant fear — you are not creating health; you are creating fragility.

And fragility, dressed up as wellness, is still fragility.

Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars.