Fashionably Unwell – The Dark Side of America's "Wellness" Industry

Wellness: Fact vs. Fiction

Danielle Belardo

Nutrition, Alternative Health, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2022

⏱️ ? minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Join Dr. Danielle Belardo and her expert of the week, journalist, author, and former wellness addict, Rina Raphael. After personally falling victim to commodified wellness, Rina has dedicated her career to unveiling the truth behind this "un-well" industry. On this episode, Danielle and Rina delve into the variables that have steered society into adopting "quick fixes" through fashionable wellness trends and why we shouldn’t feel bad about falling for them. Tune in for unique insight, perspective, and realness surrounding wellness that might have you thinking twice about your next self-care investment.

Danielle and Rina discuss:

The dangerous lack of scientific evidence pertaining to commodified wellness
Marketing, well-funded messaging and its powerful nature
Why people lean towards alternative ways of healing and our flawed medical system
The importance of assurance when it comes to our health and how health "gurus" falsely sell assurance
How women, rather than men, are frequently targeted in the wellness space through scare tactics
Wellness mania and why it’s considered hyper-American
The ways in which we treat wellness as if it were fashion, and why this is so problematic

Rina Raphael is a health, wellness, technology, and women’s issues journalist. She’s made a name for herself in the media world, having served as a wellness industry reporter for Fast Company magazine before contributing to publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Men's Health, among others. Her new book, The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self Care, provides an inside look at the boom of the wellness industry, its seductive marketing, and why we’re all falling victim to it. Her wellness industry newsletter Well To Do covers trends and news and offers market analysis.

Thank you so much for taking the time to contribute to a generation that values fact over fiction! Be sure to rate, review, and follow on your favorite podcast app and let us know which not-so-wellness trend you’d like to hear debunked. Follow your host on Instagram @daniellebelardomd and the podcast @wellnessfactvsfiction. All studies discussed can be found @wellnessfvfjournalclub. Follow Rina at @rrrins and find her new book The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self Care

Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible. Check out these deals just for you:

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by Podcast Nation.
0:07.6	Take this bath or use this face mask or this and that.
0:10.8	It's all about kind of treating the symptoms instead of the root causes of why you feel so stressed out.
0:16.8	Maybe it's because you don't get help at home.
0:18.5	Maybe it's because, again, your boss gives you too much work.
0:21.0	But instead we're telling everyone to sort of pacify themselves with, I don't know, some wellness app or something that they can buy.
0:28.4	And it's like gaslighting women.
0:30.7	If you think that you're stressed out because you're not doing enough yoga, you're kidding yourself.
0:35.5	That's not the reason why.
0:36.9	And so much of this messaging within this
0:39.5	industry is so problematic. Welcome to wellness, fact versus fiction. I'm Dr. Danyal
0:51.1	Balardo, and I'm a cardiologist who loves evidence-based medicine and nutrition science.
0:55.7	But as a millennial, I've watched endless wellness vads take over social media.
1:00.2	It's my mission to get to the bottom of things by bringing on the top expert physicians and scientists
1:04.8	to help us determine what is fact versus fiction when it comes to your health.
1:09.7	It's time to leave the pseudoscience behind and become empowered when it comes to our wellness.
1:22.9	Hi, everyone, and welcome back to wellness fact versus fiction.
1:27.4	And this week we are with
1:28.9	the incredible Rina Raphael, who is a journalist who specializes in health, wellness, tech,
1:36.2	and women's issues. She covered the wellness industry for Fast Company magazine and is also
1:41.4	written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CBS, NBC News, and
1:45.7	Men's Health, among many other publications. Her wellness industry newsletter, well-to-do,
	...

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