The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care

Clean eating. Clean cosmetics. Spinning. Meditation. If we’re healthier than ever, then why do American women feel even more stressed out? In the tradition of The Beauty Myth, journalist Rina Raphael looks at women’s obsession with wellness, and how the cure has become as bad as the disease.
Journalist Rina Raphael has been there. She’s bought cases of kombucha, she’s paid $45 for an exercise class, she’s sprinkled mushroom “superpowder” in her coffee, she’s gone on luxury mindfulness retreats, and she’s hung out with Hollywood’s crystal healers. . . . She’s a respected journalist who has specialized in health and wellness , so she should know better right? Yes. And No.

You see Raphael was once a wellness junkie. Like millions of other women out there, she held out hope that clean eating or the newest strength training class would give her the salvation she sought. Why? Because the modern American woman has been sold a bum deal. In their male dominated workplace, stress levels for women are 1.5 times higher than for men. They then venture home, only to be confronted by “the second shift.”

Just how bad is it? Google searches for “self care” are at an all-time high. Dentists have seen an uptick in angry women grinding their teeth at night. What have women been sold as coping mechanisms? Meditation apps, “detoxes”, manifestation gurus ―things that only a few years ago might have been considered fringe that are now mainstream. But deep within the underbelly of self-care―hidden beneath layers of clever marketing―the wellness industry beckons women with a far stronger, more seductive message. It promises women the one thing they desperately desire: control. They are told they can manage the chaos ruling their life by following a laid-out plan: Eat right, exercise, meditate, then buy all this stuff. This mass consumerism is a metaphor for harnessing everything that feels untenable in their life. Wellness isn’t just a lifestyle; it’s become something much more. It’s something to believe in. Which is why wellness is increasingly adopting patterns similar to religion.

The desire to be healthy is anything but new. But what we’re witnessing today is completely unlike its predecessors. Wellness, in its current form, is almost an obsession for the American woman. What’s the reason everyone is guzzling kombucha and taking to aromatherapy now? Why do women feel the weight of the world when they go to the grocery store and choose conventional over the hefty priced organic produce for their families? Why, in this moment, do we find ourselves at what seems to be the peak of alternative health practices? To quote Gwyneth Paltrow at a recent Goop summit, “Why do we all not feel well?” The Gospel of Wellness will examine how and why American women were led down this costly kale-covered path. Part investigative report, part sociological analysis, part personal account, this book will dive deep into this booming movement, bringing the reader inside the sprawling landscape of wellness and introducing them to its many trends and blind spots.

Blending traditional reporting, first-person narrative, and social critique, Rina Raphael will guide readers through a journey of the modern American woman and why she’s so dissatisfied with the status quo. Wellness did not sprout in a vacuum: it’s a reaction to trends building over decades. Women are searching for meaning, purpose, community, and certainty―and trying to find it in through health practices. But what happens when the cure becomes as bad as the disease?