As I open social media after a long day at school, I am immediately inundated with videos discussing what influencers eat in a day and their promotion of unnatural bodies and unrealistic workout routines, all for the sake of wellness. Filling young minds with unachievable standards for a body, wellness culture, a lifestyle compiled with social and commercial trends, is detrimental rather than helpful to the overall health of society.
Emphasizing the necessity of whole foods and the counting of calories and protein within a meal discourages the enjoyment of food, teaching young girls to overanalyze what they eat. Is it a whole food, with all protein and no added sugar? No? Then I cannot eat it! This is the mentality that wellness culture is perpetuating. I should be able to enjoy a chocolate chip cookie with all the sugar in the world, bringing me only happiness and no guilt.
Teenagers like myself encounter reel after reel advertising new health-driven technologies, such as vibration plates and detox cleanses. Every video I watch, I wonder if the words coming out of influencers’ mouths are genuine or if it is companies’ pseudoscience. With these new products coming out on the daily, wellness corporations appeal to gullible audiences, encouraging extreme consumerism. According to the Global Wellness Institute’s research, by 2029, the global wellness economy will reach $10 trillion.
While gym culture has always been prominent in society, its presence online has only increased as short-form content burrows its way into social media. Now, you cannot escape the Pilates craze that many women have participated in and the emphasis on supplements. Despite putting on a front that they gained a toned, lean body from a year of Pilates, the harsh reality is most gain this level of “fitness” through intense dieting and extremely regimented gym routines. For those who cannot afford to spend thousands of hours and dollars achieving this standardized look, they turn to knockoff GLP-1 drugs.
These reels of women filming themselves consistently at the gym twice a day or posting photos of their weight loss journey showing up in a teenager’s feed can make someone begin to question the health and acceptance of their own body.
Rather than allowing wellness culture to rob teenagers of confidence and foster an obsession about weight, the perspective needs to change. Wellness culture needs to shift from disguised fad diets and consumerism to the promotion of positive body awareness, balanced eating, and the normalization of a thicker body.
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