Houseplant clinic: why does my kalanchoe have a powdery coating?
My kalanchoe plant's leaves have developed a strange white, powdery coating, and I'm worried it may spread.
Diagnosis
This sounds like powdery mildew, a common fungal disease. It thrives in warm, humid environments with poor airflow. Powdery mildew doesn't usually kill a plant outright, but it weakens growth, damages leaves and can spread quickly to nearby plants.
Prescription
Start by isolating the affected plant to prevent the fungus from spreading. Remove any heavily infected leaves carefully. Improve airflow by opening a window often or using a fan. Treat the remaining leaves with a natural antifungal spray: mix one teaspoon of baking soda with a litre of water and a drop of castile soap. Spray the plant weekly until the mildew clears. For more stubborn infections, apply neem oil or use a store-bought fungicide.
Prevention
Make sure not to overcrowd your plants and maintain good air circulation, particularly around succulents. Check them regularly, especially during the cooler months, to identify early signs of fungal activity.
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The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
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And even after blocking or unfollowing the creators who particularly spike my anxiety, these videos are inescapable. The hashtag #whatieatinaday (or #WIEIAD) has billions of views, and currently 2.3M posts attached to it on TikTok. Feeding the algorithm The format is easily replicable, low-effort and wildly popular, so creators of all niches seem to have jumped on the trend. Sometimes, especially from foodie accounts, these videos can feel useful, introducing me to new recipes or cooking styles. But more often than not, I come away from my time on TikTok with a creeping sense of discomfort. As a genre, these videos make food more of a public performance than ever before. In many ways, they're a modern reboot of the early 2000s 'what's in my fridge?' features in magazines, but repackaged for the TikTok generation. The trouble is, while food can be about community and connection, WIEIAD videos often do the opposite. They invite surveillance and judgment. I've caught myself watching and mentally calculating if someone's eating too much or too little or how many vegetables are on their plate. I hate that I do this, and it goes against everything I believe in. But even those actively unlearning diet culture internalise the dangerous messaging about what we should or shouldn't be eating. This is the baked-in hypocrisy of habitual WIEIAD viewing – we become the food police, even if we don't want to. And that policing, by ourselves and others, damages our relationships with eating. Social media thrives on comparison. Now more than ever, young people have access to the interior, curated lives of others, and they compare themselves constantly. That includes the food they're eating. What one influencer eats might not be replicable for a follower with a different body, income level, or cultural background, but the pressure to conform still exists. Embedded in diet culture Personal trainer and functional mobility specialist Laura Ghiacy reacts to WIEIAD videos by breaking down toxic language, debunking myths and calling out weight-loss rhetoric. She knows the problem with comparison all too well. 'I started dieting when I was just 8 years old, and that spiralled into decades of disordered eating and obsessive food control,' she explains. 'So when social media first took off and 'what I eat in a day' videos exploded in popularity, I was hooked. I watched them religiously, copied them meal for meal, and truly believed that if I just followed what these influencers ate, I'd finally look like them, finally be enough.' Ghiacy told me that she creates these reaction videos to help people avoid diet culture traps. 'I know my experience is on the extreme end of the spectrum, but that's exactly why I create these reactions. 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Nasse hasn't seen her clients bring up her WIEIAD videos when discussing body image, but clients do cite them as sources of inspiration or education: 'clients say that they found it helpful to see how I used an ingredient or how they tried a particular recipe or learnt a new fact about what the science says.' Ghiacy agrees, and says she finds some of these videos 'refreshing'. She has seen WIEIAD videos that celebrate food, showcase cultural diversity and promote joy, nourishment, and the reality that thinness is not the same thing as health. She believes that this kind of content is 'powerful and important'. Nasse believes those making WIEIAD videos have to be very careful, and highlight that they are just examples to inspire. 'Some influencers who have no credentials in health and wellness have shared videos with very low calories, demonising ingredients and promoting unachievable and unrealistic lifestyle habits that you absolutely do have to be careful and aware about. On the flip side we can use these videos as a tool to help and inspire others, helping them get more goodness into their diet, showing how simple swaps and changes can have a big impact.' The toxic load This all points to a bigger issue with social media wellness trends: it's easy for health misinformation to thrive. 'Even if WIEIAD videos are not mentioned directly, many young people in particular get ideas about health and nutrition from social media,' highlights Dr Markey. 'Often this information is taken as fact when it is not at all evidence-based information. Anyone can suggest health information online, facts can be distorted, research misinterpreted and disinformation is presented with the aim of selling health-related products.' WIEIAD videos often reflect deeper cultural anxieties about health, beauty and control. They are a window into our food culture's extremes – from 'clean girl' smoothies and supplements to fast-food-only diets. 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