The Cult Of Wellness

The “wellness” industry generates trillions of dollars but is it making any of us well, or just an unregulated, untested con?

- Genevieve Gannon

Morning sunlight fills a bright and airy bedroom as a mobile phone’s celestial alarm marks the start of the day. A hand reaches out to tap it off with manicured fingernails that are shiny and pink. Then a dewy-skinned Jennifer Aniston bounces out of bed and stretches in her gently rumpled, white linen robe, before padding downstairs for ‘breakfast’.

“Collagen supports our bodies from the inside out,” she says as she adds a hefty scoop of white powder to a pot of black coffee she has made from freshly ground beans. “When we feel supported from within, we feel our best.”

Jen does some yoga. Runs on her treadmill. Decisively strikes a line out of a script with a pencil while sitting on a big soft rain cloud of a sofa. She’s radiant, but relatable. Fit, but cerebral. She’s everything the wellness industry promises we can be, and all for $29 a month. (The brand behind the ad offers a subscription service.) It’s a lovely story, but there’s just one problem.

It doesn't give you anything you can't get from food, says pre-eminent nutritionist Rosemary Stanton.

“Collagen is just the latest supplement that is supposed to give you smooth skin and help your muscles and all the rest of it, and they sell it for huge prices. It doesn’t go down through your stomach into your intestines and get magically absorbed up into the wrinkles around your eyes. People have very little idea of digestion. They think things zoom to a particular part of the body.”