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The Disordered World of Wellness
We don’t need to agonize about our health. We need to organize our communities.
When did wellness get so stressful?
Beauty, I mean sure — we expect that to be sadistic at this point — but isn’t wellness culture supposed to be all about reducing stress, feeling more relaxed, moving from dis-ease to ease? Earlier this year, Estelle Tang wrote in The Guardian: “[T]he relentless grind of self-care consumes 112 days of my life each year.”
Relentless is just the word for it. Navigating self-healing amid a constant barrage of wellness trends and must-haves feels like struggling for air in a riptide. How can I possibly stay on top of all the things my body apparently now needs: probiotic-rich foods that are simultaneously low-FODMAP and provide enough fat for my brain without adding any to my thighs? Which should eat up more of my paycheck: organic, local food, a yoga studio membership, or visiting specialist doctors or holistic naturopaths (none of whom take my insurance)? Should I buy a $600 gastrointestinal health test or a $300 hormone test or spend another $100 on lion’s mane extract, oil of oregano and L-theanine?
Not to mention, how do we know if any of this even works? The wellness industry is just as for-profit as Big Pharma. Nobody’s hands are all-the-way…
