New book by TMU researcher explores why people buy into wellness culture

From supplements and cleanses to yoga and meditation, wellness culture thrives despite skepticism from the very people who partake in it. That’s one of the findings that Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) English professor Colleen Derkatch explores in her new book Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture. She finds that motivation for seeking wellness products and services extends far beyond the health claims of the products themselves and points to problems in our collective wellbeing.

“I started to realize, through doing my research and just living my life, that people actually do get a lot of value out of using wellness products and services even if they are skeptical of their effectiveness. It’s just that the value that we get isn’t what we think we’re getting,” said professor Derkatch, whose expertise is in rhetoric.

Professor Derkatch says her main priority in the book is to point out the systemic issues that lead people to wellness culture and to reframe the conversation around wellness. For the book, she interviewed 40 participants who were interested in wellness and natural health about their perceptions of wellness, natural health products, health and illness. Professor Derkatch also used tools and insights from rhetorical criticism and related research fields including critical health studies, sociology and philosophy to analyze a range of public materials from social media posts and online petitions to non-fiction books and television shows in order to see how wellness persuades both individuals and systems. The pattern of findings was consistent across her sources and helps explain why wellness culture has become so pervasive and enduring.

“Wellness is very amorphous. It can be different things at different times,” said professor Derkatch, who found that wellness can be a form of survival strategy, self-management, harm reduction or health optimization depending on what someone is seeking. It also helps people address needs that official health care and regulatory systems do not meet. 

For example, research participants turned to wellness service providers and products when they felt their doctor appointments were too short and did not address their concerns or when they wanted alternatives to pharmaceuticals. Other participants concerned with chemical additives in food, cleaning and beauty products also sought out wellness products to counteract perceived threats to their health.

Professor Derkatch found that although wellness culture can fulfill many needs for those who seek it, the idea of wellness is marketed as an individual solution to individual problems. While wellness practices like meditation or daily supplements can provide moments of rest or a sense of control over one’s own health, the rhetoric of wellness culture can distract from the root cause of individuals’ problems. Professor Derkatch says those problems are often much bigger, systemic problems.

“People who undertake these practices are grappling with real and pressing issues in the only way that they really can because the average person doesn’t have any ability to control things like legislation or government policy or the way corporations work,” said professor Derkatch. “Wellness sells because it offers little ways to cope with big problems, if only momentarily.”

In the book, professor Derkatch says readers will learn how and why the language of wellness is insidious and find ways to disrupt its effects.

This research is supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Read Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture (external link, opens in new window) .