The wellness trap : break free from diet culture, disinformation, and dubious diagnoses, and find your true well-being

Title:

Author:

Harrison, Christy (Nutritionist), author.

Personal Author:

Harrison, Christy (Nutritionist), author.

ISBN:

9780316315609

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

311 pages ; 25 cm

Abstract:

""It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle." You've probably heard this phrase from any number of people in the wellness space. But as Christy Harrison reveals in her latest book, wellness culture promotes a standard of health that is often both unattainable and deeply harmful. Many people with chronic illness understandably feel dismissed or abandoned by the healthcare system and find solace in alternative medicine, as Harrison once did. Yet the wellness industry promotes practices that often cause even more damage than the conventional approaches they're meant to replace. Weaving together history, memoir, reporting, and practical advice, Harrison illuminates the harms of wellness culture while re-imagining our society's relationship with well-being"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

Alternative medicine -- Social aspects.

Medical misconceptions.

Misinformation -- Health aspects.

Well-being.

Self-care, Health.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

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Summary

AS SEEN ON CBS MORNINGS, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE CUT, AND MORE

SELF MAGAZINE'S #1 WELLNESS BOOK OF 2023

A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB MUST-READ BOOK FOR APRIL 2023

A searing critique of modern wellness culture and how it stands in the way of true well-being that "will change the way you think about your health--in all the best ways." (Casey Gueren )

"It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle." You've probably heard this phrase from any number of people in the wellness space. But as Christy Harrison reveals in her latest book, wellness culture promotes a standard of health that is often both unattainable and deeply harmful.

Many people with chronic illness understandably feel dismissed or abandoned by the healthcare system and find solace in alternative medicine, as Harrison once did. Yet the wellness industry promotes practices that often cause even more damage than the conventional approaches they're meant to replace. From the lack of pre-market safety testing on herbal and dietary supplements, to the unfounded claims made by many wellness influencers and functional-medicine providers, to the social-media algorithms driving users down rabbit holes of wellness mis- and disinformation, it can often feel like no one is looking out for us in the face of the $4.4 trillion global wellness industry.

The Wellness Trap delves into the persistent, systemic problems with that industry, offering insight into its troubling pattern of cultural appropriation and its destructive views on mental health, and shedding light on how a growing distrust of conventional medicine has led ordinary people to turn their backs on science. Weaving together history, memoir, reporting, and practical advice, Harrison illuminates the harms of wellness culture while re-imagining our society's relationship with well-being.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A hard look at health and diet scams. Harrison, a dietician, journalist, and author of Anti-Diet, mounts a persuasive critique of the multitrillion-dollar wellness industry. Distinguishing between wellness and well-being, the author faults the wellness industry for selling the idea that individual choice--"the things you do," rather than genetics or social determinants--is central to attaining and maintaining health. "And doing those things," Harrison notes, "typically requires a fair amount of economic privilege." Emphasizing the overlap between wellness and diet culture, the author shows how restrictive diets, juice cleanses, and intuitive fasting have incited eating disorders. "For many people," Harrison asserts, "wellness culture's views on food are a gateway into a belief system where every product is a potential threat, every lifestyle choice a matter of life and death." Wellness culture denigrates conventional medicine, portraying doctors, in league with big pharma, as more interested in financial gain than healing. In contrast to medical diagnoses, wellness practitioners have invented ailments such as adrenal fatigue, leaky gut syndrome, and chronic candida, for which they offer a host of useless supplements and expensive treatments. Harrison sees a strong link between the claims of much alternative medicine and conspiracy theorists: Both believe "nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected." Both spread misinformation and disinformation--about the perils of vaccination, for example--through social media. Harrison urges tech companies to stop this insidious spread and calls on Congress to repeal a 1994 law that barred the FDA from testing or approving herbal and dietary supplements. Most empathically, she urges us to think critically about the wellness industry's claims. "Wellness culture is a trap," she writes, "keeping us stuck in a narrow view of what it means to be well and exposing us to much that is harmful--weight stigma, scams, conspiracy theories, damaging approaches to mental health, false diagnoses." A sobering, well-informed analysis of widespread deceit. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.