The Entire Wellness Industry Is Bullshit

Yes. You read that correctly.

Depending on how you define a human being, we’ve been around for anywhere between hundreds of thousands to millions of years. And here we are. We survived. We made it this far. And guess what, until the last quarter century or so, we managed to stay alive without a “wellness industry.”

What is health? Simple: It’s the absence of disease. You can be old, frail, weak, barely able to get out of bed; and yet be perfectly healthy. You can be 20 years old, an Adonis, able to trail run Annapurna, and be perfectly healthy. If there’s nothing seriously wrong you, you are — in a word — healthy. Whatever your age, your strength, your physical prowess. You’re healthy.

And then some geniuses contrived to sell the concept of Super Health. Break out your credit card, and you can be Healthier than Healthy. You can have less than zero disease. You can eat organic food, which is more natural than natural. You can attend expensive classes for yoga, for meditation, for using a $10,000 stationary bike, and achieve Wellness.

What is wellness?

I have a very simple definition for wellness. It is a healthy person’s normal state of general good health, but with a price tag. You’ve paid someone to certify what your body does on its own, what its entire purpose is: to maintain general good health.

Let’s put it in practical terms. If you are on top of your health — say, you’ve been to your GP lately and have a general sense of your health, and are properly treating any issues you might have, perhaps with a prescription or two, or maybe a manageable lifestyle change — and you are as physically active as you choose to be, then:

THERE IS NOT A DAMN THING ANY WELLNESS PRODUCT OR SERVICE CAN DO FOR YOU.

Do not give the clever marketing geniuses your money. It is not theirs. They have not earned it by promising you something that does not exist: better health than health.