How to Be Well

A deeply researched, lively, and personal exploration of the multi-billion dollar wellness industry -- about why women are feeling so un-well and how this trend has shaped our thinking about health and self-care.

Peloton. Pilates. Biohacking. Colonics. Ashwagandha. Today, the wellness industry is a $3. 7 trillion dollar behemoth that touches us all. In this timely and clear-eyed book, journalist Amy Larocca peels back the layers behind the movement and reckons with its promises and profits. How did we get here and how did the idea of wellness become integrated with women's lives? And how did we end up spending so much money on products that may not work at all?

Amy Larocca takes readers into the communities that swear by their activated charcoal toothpaste and green juice enemas, explaining what each of these practices really are— and what the science says. Larocca holds a magnifying glass to alternative medicine and nouveau lifestyle prescriptions -- and tries a lot herself along the way -- ultimately delivering an assessment of how the wellness industry embodies our (gendered, class-based, racialized) perceptions of care and self-improvement, and how it preys upon our unshakeable fear of the unknown. She traces the history of how the beauty and fashion industries has peddled snake oil to women for decades— and why we keep coming back for more.

A clear-eyed and honest portrait of the weird world of wellness, How to Be Well lays bare the ways in which the simple notion of caring for oneself has become a seriously big business.