Wellness is Dumb
a novel thought, I know
Ha! Got ya with the click-baity headline. I went for a Cut-style audience acquisition tactic, and what do you know, it worked!
This isn’t going to be an essay about how wellness is elitist, fatphobic, wasteful, unnecessary, toxic, etc. Those essays have been written — and I generally agree — but that’s not what this is about. Frankly, if there’s one thing more annoying than the wellness industry, it’s the discourse that surrounds it.
I can’t get this Dazed article titled Is wellness culture fueling a health anxiety crisis? out of my head, and therefore out of my mouth. It posits that wellness culture is the cause of increased anxiety, and that our wearable tech and desire to feel good is creating the reverse effect, making us obsessed with our health to a perfectionistic insanity.
One of the main issues with this article, in my opinion, is our society’s lack of critical thought. Yes, wellness culture can be the reason so many of us are ‘more’ anxious now. But it’s in conjunction with social media, AI, our failing health care system, the list goes on. Plus, this perspective completely disempowers the consumer. More on that later.
Feeling Good, Industrialized
Wellness, by true definition, has very little to do with products. It’s unfortunate that the word was assigned to this industry of powders and supplements and workout equipment, because “wellness” now seems to have lost all meaning. To me, wellness feels like a catchall term — not unlike my IBS diagnosis, if you will — a label given to products and people who have an interest in self-improvement, or the artifice of such. A pretty personal concept thrown onto an economic category. Hence the tension.
I’m not going to explain the evolution of capitalism here, but I think it’s worth stating, wellness was never intended to be an industry. If you think about it, the same can be said about most industries. At one point, humans decided clothes were needed, so people started making them, and then selling them, and then buying them, and then a fashion industry was created. (Or something like that, I’m no Adam Smith over here.)
As our society evolved into the Internet Age, the Tech Craze, and the Culture of Influence, consumption and production grew in previously uncharted territory, largely thanks to the introduction of social media and ease of global conversations. With all of this iNnOvAtiOn, people realized that they felt like ass, so, naturally, they made products to make them feel better. Extreme examples include (but are not limited to): Elizabeth Holmes, Bryan Johnson. Ah, the human urge to build.*
Cut to now: the trend cycle is faster than ever and we’re obsessed with buying things and talking about them, rather, complaining about them, online. I’m not claiming to be above it. In fact, I write a newsletter where I literally buy things and review them. (And I love it, for the record.) For every “shop-till-you-drop” girlie, there’s a person who comments on your TikTok urging you to “decenter your neoliberal ideals”. Yeah, obviously we’re all “addicted to capitalism” (??) or whatever, but can we relax for two seconds?
As a brand strategist (cue eye roll), content creator (fml), and proud consumer, I have a front row seat into all of these extremes, none of which are correct. Let’s get back to basics, and once those are covered, let’s shop in moderation. It’s not as easy as it sounds, it requires something our society is nearly void of: critical thinking skills.
The Power is in the Hands of the Purchaser
Consumers these days put a lot of responsibility on the companies that sell them the products. Don’t get me wrong, companies suck and they’ve been known to shirk blame for big, international issues, but that’s more corporate than I’m even referring to. The woman who started her healthy chocolate bar company that doubles as a vitamin? I don’t think she’s so evil. She’s also a consumer, and she’s just responding to the ostensible desires of her peers, which, you could argue, is all of us.** These products wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t demand! And if there’s no demand, they’ll wash away as quickly as they appeared. We’re all complicit in the good and the bad.
So now’s as good a time as ever to empower you to make choices with your best interest in mind, a key part of modern existence that this piece fails to take into account. Remember folks, you have agency!!! Just because companies are selling you $500 sleep-tracking rings and herbal supplements that promise to make your skin glow, that doesn’t mean you have to buy them. As the consumer, you have the power! Listen to your gut and know thyself — that’s the whole point of wellness, after all. Unfortunately, it’s not as sexy. But then again, neither is your Apple Watch.
Like I said, this is a deeply personal concept that we’ve accidentally warped to speak for an entire industry. So what is wellness, actually?
Wellness is not a shiny new skincare device, it’s not a $30 smoothie, and it’s 9/10 times not a pill of any kind. Although, it could be if you’re like me and that pill is an SSRI.
You contradict yourself! Yes, I do. Everything in life is a contradiction, and it’s an obstacle I keep coming up against.*** The wellness industry is a contradiction in and of itself.
From my perspective, at its core, wellness means taking care. Taking care of ourselves, our minds, our bodies, each other, the planet. It’s being happy and feeling good — not in the fleeting head-rush of a cigarette pull with a stranger outside the bar — but in the meaningful conversation and human connection that it creates. It’s presence, it’s joy, it’s LAUGHTER. It’s having a relationship with yourself and making the choices that suit you, and/or having compassion when you F up.
Sometimes it’s a pilates class and a smoothie with your best friend, and sometimes it’s walking your dog with no headphones and listening to the sounds of the city. It doesn’t need to be a $30 santal-scented body wash, but if that body wash brings you joy and reminds you that you’re doing the taking-care-of-yourself thing and that indulging in the ritual of it all can be fun, then maybe it is.
That’s the beauty of all of this. We all take care of ourselves in our own ways. Life is short and I’m simply trying to live life and have fun and feel good in my body and laugh with the people I love. Maybe that’s cheesy and deeply earnest, but that’s wellness and it was never meant to be cool.
The commodification of ritual and self-care is, at this point, heavy-handed. And that’s coming from a white woman in New York, so that’s really saying something. But truly, it doesn’t need to be so complicated. Once we start trying too hard, that’s where the cringe comes in.
Now when people think of wellness, they think of superfood lattes and cold plunges and inaccessibility. It’s the commodification of Eastern Medicine and the gentrification of spirituality. It’s this recoleta font that we cannot escape. It’s the condescension and superficiality behind the phrase “wellness girlie”.
Back in my day, we went on walks because they felt good (not because they were for hot girls) and ate vegetables. Straight up. Somewhere down the line, we started to really overcomplicate things. You could probably call it Western maximalism. Corporate colonialism works too.
I’m not here to linger in nostalgia — that gets equally annoying very quickly. I also need to make clear that there have always been issues with access in healthcare, food deserts, and the democratization of information. We haven’t fixed those issues, and maybe it’s worth reeling it in and refocusing our attention there? Food for thought. (It’s vegan, BTW.)
My biggest issue with this entire industry is that there’s no sense of humor any more. GUYS. Laugh a little. These powders and workouts and gluten-free, dairy-free mac and cheeses are silly and you don’t have to buy them. They’re not a personal affront to you. You can try them if you want. Or don’t, that’s your prerogative. I’ll be here observing.
As time passes, the more I realize that none of this matters.
Wait wait, this isn’t getting nihilist (I’m over that phase of my life). None of this matters, in the best way possible. I’m speaking from an Epicurean perspective. If I may preach for a second, I believe a huge part of happiness in the modern day is hedonism with restraint. Indulging in the silly little whatever, within reason.
If you’re like me, doing what *sparks joy* sometimes means buying something. I’m SORRY, I’ll say it — I’m not totally anti-stuff. I love to treat myself to a dry shampoo that reminds me to savor my haircare rituals or a berry-flavored magnesium powder that makes me sleep better. Sue me.
Again, re-enter wellness. Listen to your gut. Don’t buy an Apple Watch if you have a feeling it’ll make you anxious. Or do. But you don’t need to complain about it on the internet. You have the choice. So long as your Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is all covered, the rest is on an opt-in basis. Warning — b-word incoming — but boundaries are the healthiest hack of all.
I’m going to be the 900th person on the internet to recite this Michael Pollan quote, but we could all use a reminder:
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
The same can be said for our non-edible consumption habits, industry-agnostic.
Buy the things that make you happy, don’t go overboard.
Once again, in all aspects of the word: balance!!!!
I’ll keep doing what makes me happy and buying fun items if I want them. As the great Kourtney Kardashian once said and now continues to capitalize on, lemme live.
*This needs its own thinkpiece. Maybe that’ll be next…
**This isn’t an ode to founders by any means — they’re their own breed. We don’t really need more stuff (wellness-themed or otherwise), and you have to be relatively crazy to start your own consumer product company at this point. That should go without saying.
***A therapist of mine once told me, “the most difficult part of being a functional, content human being is accepting that two opposing thoughts can be true at the same time.” Or something like that. It was obviously a lot smarter when she said it.
I think wellness gives us a semblance of control in a world where we literally have 0 actual control. And you know what I love that for us.
what a healthy reminder that wellness rarely looks good (in a glamorous pinterest -esque kind of way). the essay was a good way to tie in how low attention spans and the need to keep up with trends really amplifies the lack of impulse control that constantly consuming enables.