How to be well : navigating our self-care epidemic, one dubious cure at a time / Amy Larocca.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Larocca, Amy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Health promotion--United States.

Health promotion.

Health products--Social aspects--United States.

Health products.

Women--Health and hygiene--United States--Sociological aspects.

Women.

Women--Health and hygiene--Economic aspects--United States.

Physical Description:

viii, 291 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.

Summary:

"Peloton. Pilates. Biohacking. Colonics. Ashwagandha. Today, the wellness industry is a 5.6 trillion dollar behemoth that touches us all. In this timely and clear-eyed book, journalist Amy Larocca peels back the layers behind the wellness 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? Larocca knows a trend when she sees one. As a journalist, she spent nearly twenty years covering the fashion industry. Sometime around 2016, she noticed that many women from the fashion world were making the professional shift into wellness. Whether it was with the supplement business or exercise concerns or wellness centers or even colonic therapies, they were leaving fashion behind for the Next Big Thing. In How to Be Well, Larocca takes readers into the communities that swear by their activated charcoal toothpaste and green juice enemas, explaining what each of these practices really is -- 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 on our unshakeable fear of the unknown. She traces the history of how the beauty and fashion industries have 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." -- Jacket flap.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I : Cure

Medicine and its alternatives

Holistic, functional, profitable

Kooks

Chronic illness

Self-care

Part II : Glow

Body positive?

Sex positive

Clean beauty

Dressing to be well

Glow lifestyle

Part III : Spirit and soul

Soul

Exercise

Self-love

Cult

Outside of exercise

Part IV : Pure

Cleanse

Environment

All natural

Politics

Vaccines and the rabbit hole

Cleaning as rite

Part V : Beyond

Meditation / mindfulness

Tripping

What about men?

Biohacking

Immortality

Conclusion.

Notes:

"A Borzoi book"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-275) and index.

ISBN:

9780525655534

0525655530

9780525565161

0525565167

OCLC:

1430501462