The $6.3 Trillion Wellness Myth (Real Health Isn’t for Sale)
A candid look at how the wellness industry profits from your confusion—and what real health actually requires.
Forget the juice cleanses, overpriced supplements, and luxury leggings—wellness isn’t something you can buy.
There is so much confusion out there regarding how to live a healthy life. The wellness industry is a $6.3 trillion entity that profits from your confusion. It’s important to remember that true wellness, though, often doesn’t come from things you can buy.
Health doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.
Because wellness is a business, we’re constantly sold solutions to problems we may not even have.
The wellness industry often offers false promises and cure-all solutions. I recently stumbled upon a company selling “herbal tinctures.” It’s website promised":
Holistic healing
Addressing root-cause symptoms
Promoting balance in your body
I’ll admit, they’re messaging and tactful branding sucked me right in.
Their slogan, Nature is Medicine is right up my alley. I browsed for a bit, and purchased 3 tinctures. One promised to boost my metabolism and enhance my recovery. The other, to promote healthy digestion. And the last: guaranteed immune support and an energy boost. A few clicks and more than $100 later, better health was being packed up and shipped to me in a brown box.
After receiving the the tinctures in the mail a week later, I began to have second thoughts. In a bit of a panic for how much I spent, I looked up the return policy.
“All items are final sale.”
Great.
I guess I was stuck to give these drops of herbal goodness a try.
After a few months of using, I noticed no differences. Regardless of whether or not they made any impact, I certainly couldn’t tell. For all the benefits the herb drops promised, they didn’t seem to deliver. The claim on the website that bothered me the most was that the herbal formulas would help address root cause health issues. How?
Here are examples of root-cause issues:
Your job may be stressing you out due to a toxic culture, demanding hours, and a complete lack of work-life balance.
Your relationship may be struggling because your child is in the hospital.
Your overwhelming fatigue might be from staying up late cramming for exams, working a part-time job, and skipping meals because you’re too busy to eat properly.
How could something that arrives in box fix the root cause of your stress? How could a supplement fix the root cause of your emotional turmoil? How could some green liquid drops fix the root cause of your exhaustion?
The answer: it couldn’t. For all that wellness products promise, they often can’t deliver.
True Wellness Doesn’t Come in a Bottle
It’s not something you can order online or apply to your life like a quick fix. Real health comes from addressing the deeper layers of your life. Your everyday habits, environments, and relationships are what truly shape your well-being.
While the wellness industry may sell you the idea that healing is easy and external, the reality is often far more personal and complex.
This doesn’t mean all wellness products are bad or that you shouldn’t explore brands that align with your values.
BUT it’s important to approach them with a clear understanding that true health requires more than quick fixes.
The next time you’re tempted by a product promising to transform your life, pause.
Ask yourself: is this solving a real problem, or is it just a distraction from the deeper work? At the end of the day, the most powerful investments you can make in your health don’t come with a price tag.
I’ll leave you with 3 journal prompts to help you explore root-cause stressors in your life and what you can do today to address them:
What are the top three things in your life currently causing you the most stress?
Are these three things related to your environment, relationships, work, or something else?
What would your life look like if these things were not causing you stress? What would have to change? What is in your control?
I hope you take the time to think through these, and I hope they are helpful.
As always, thanks so much for reading. Please consider subscribing—it’s free =)
💗,
Sophie Francis
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