Hear Dr. Robert Barrett, sociologist and author of Hardwired: How our Instincts to be Healthy are Making us Sick, discuss the problem of authenticity in our current social climate.

Poets, philosophers, bards and society itself exhort us to be authentic, Shakespeare, in his play Hamlet, urges us to thine own self be true, but society itself often lacks authenticity, and while it trumpets the virtue, regularly penalizes them that would be authentic.

While our well-being and mental health benefit from personal authenticity, we consequently also also have to navigate significant social challenges where perceptions and 'optics' often eclipse realities.

Social stressors are a major source of distress and chronic disease exacerbation. How will the young contend with the anomalies and mixed messaging of our rapidly changing social landscape?

What discipline or institution will grapple and ameliorate this problem?

When enmeshed by a tangle of complication, the answer is sometimes surprisingly simple, under one's own feet. Perhaps our best chance to save the day is increased awareness, will and collaboration at a grass roots level.