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Is Wellness Culture Causing More Harm Than It Solves?

After smoking for almost half my life and indulging in many other bad habits, I decided to turn my life around by investing in a personal trainer, becoming a vegetarian and finally, letting go of cigarettes and alcohol altogether.

Whilst I admit that my previous relationship led me to see the benefits of a healthier lifestyle, the truth is the impact of the wellness industry around me didn’t go unnoticed. From CBD goods and diet shakes to activated charcoal products and mindfulness apps, self-care metamorphosed from a radical, political and feminist concept to one of the most profitable industries.

Since the conception of its popularised term, coined in the 1950s by Dr Halbert L. Dunn, who’s often called the father of the movement, wellness was sharply distinguished from wellbeing and health. Dunn classified optimal health as “the absence of illness” and a result of the realities of contemporary medicine; and wellness, the most predominant principle in his work, as an “active, ongoing pursuit” based on a characteristic individuality that seeks above all self-betterment or in other words, an image-centred facet of health.