FROM WELLNESS TO WHOLENESS

One woman explores a state of fulfillment no app or gadget can track.

- ELISE LOEHNEN

As a child of the early '80s, I remember doing Jane Fonda's first-of-its-kind, dance-based workout in our living room. It was a double-sided vinyl record, with a companion book that had photographs for following along. "Whether you're 15 or 50, with the help of this album and a little hard work, you can achieve a well-proportioned healthy body-not to mention the outward glow that comes from feeling good inside," she promised.

"Learn to understand and respect your body. It's your temple. And remember, discipline is liberation!" I also remember the late-'80s invention of step aerobics.

And I remember my mom making vegetarian dinners from the Moosewood Cookbook because she was worried about our hereditary high cholesterol.

I don't remember ever hearing the word wellness, though.

Wellness, in its current form, blazed into the mainstream in the past two decades. Its core tenets in the West were basic: water, walking, whole foods. In the U.S., at least, it seemed to be an antidote to a sometimes paternalistic, often dismissive industrial health complex, steeped in medical jargon and a lack of interest in women, as well as symptoms not easily translated into a treatment plan. Western healthcare is excellent at acute interventions, less so at managing chronic illness (of those, autoimmune diseases affect more women than men). Wellness was a bid for autonomy, a way for individuals to take control of their own well-being and stick the landing in that space between perfect health and a diagnostic code. It's a stunning and powerful idea.