Emma Sheppard is a journalist specialising in business, technology, family and social affairs. As well as Canvas8, her work has appeared in The Guardian, Wired, BBC Worldwide, The Independent and more.

People are opting out of constant self-improvement

Being+

People expect care and emotional intelligence from brands

Everyday Empathy

When Taylor Swift dropped her much-anticipated album, 

, in October 2022, one scene in the video for her song ‘Anti-Hero’ became a point of contention among some fans. In it, Swift steps on a set of scales that measure her weight as ‘FAT’. She looks up at her alter ego, who shakes her head in disappointment. Swift has been open about her body image struggles before, but many fans called out the video for being insensitive and fatphobic. With critics arguing that it was “anti-fat to present a thin, rich woman as fearing, above all, existing in a body that many people actually have,” the Apple Music version of the video was edited a few days after release to remove much of the scene. 

Glamour

This concept of the ‘ideal body’ is well worn in the wellness world. It’s the Lululemon-wearing, skinny-latte-carrying, 20-something woman who only eats raw food and has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. As a registered dietician who centers her work on Black, Indigenous, and minority ethnic people who are also LGBTQ+, Dalia Kinsey is challenging that trope through her book 

. “When you have multiple marginalized identities, it really can be stressful to find your place in the world and deal with negative messaging about your identities,” she says. “I would love for people who read [the book] to understand their worth is inherent and it doesn’t matter whether or not the world around them accepts the body that they’re in as good.” 

Interview with Dalia Kinsey conducted by the author

People are shaking off the notion that being your ‘best self’ means adhering to a singular vision of wellness. Instead, many are taking ownership of what feeling mentally well means to them and the practices they want to adopt to 

. “Wellness is not something to strive for so much as it is something that supports your life and things that are meaningful to you,” says Kinsey. “It’s what you need and what you can develop to be able to have the life that you want. [But] a lot of times, it’s defined in a limiting way that doesn’t make room for all kinds of bodies.” 

 Canvas8 spoke to Kinsey about how wellness culture has evolved, the impact that has had on marginalized people, and how brands can be part of the move to decolonize the sector.

The contemporary concept of wellness dates back to the 1950s when the American doctor Halbert Dunn merged the words wellbeing and fitness. 

Global Wellness Institute

 Fast-forward to today and wellness is now a $4.4 trillion market, according to the Global Wellness Institute. 

HospitalityNet

 In a global survey of 7,500 people, McKinsey & Company found that 79% believe wellness is important and 42% consider it a top priority. The poll also revealed that people are interested in wellness across six categories – better health, better fitness, better nutrition, better appearance, better sleep, and better mindfulness. 

McKinsey & Company

In the US, as the cost of healthcare has risen, so too has interest in wellness as a preventative measure. 

JSTOR Daily

 However, wellness is increasingly being commoditized, targeted at the wealthy and able-bodied rather than the marginalized communities that need it most. On average, nearly one in five US adults were living with a mental illness in 2020 – a proportion that rose to nearly 36% among those identifying with two or more races. 

National Institute of Mental Health

 Meanwhile, a 2021 study noted that Black Americans are 1.5 times more likely than White Americans to report feeling sad most or all the time, and Black women have a life expectancy that is three years shorter than non-Hispanic White women. 

American Psychological Association

The pandemic and cost of living crisis have also contributed to food insecurity in many American households. In 2020, 10% of parents with children aged 0-5 said their kids did not have sufficient food and they lacked the resources to purchase more. 

Brookings

 In 2022, food prices are at their highest for 40 years thanks to rising inflation, with 16% of Americans surveyed in the spring saying they were struggling financially. 

World Economic Forum

 In this light, Kinsey argues that wellness needs to extend beyond consumerism and acknowledge the wider factors that marginalized people face every day. “People don’t want to acknowledge that racism and homophobia are killing people. That it shortens lifespans,” she says. “Why would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting assimilated or healthy eating to Black Americans and then when you find out that people’s lifespans are being shortened by police violence, you don’t care... Sometimes, the solution to the problem has nothing to do with food. Sometimes, your job is literally killing you. No amount of apples is going to change the fact that you need to remove yourself from that toxic environment.” 

For some, the pandemic presented an opportunity to slow down, reconnect with family and hobbies, and dedicate time to wellness. For others, it was abundantly clear they were expected to sacrifice their wellbeing to keep the capitalist machine churning. The Poor People’s Pandemic Report, which analyzed data from over 3,000 counties, found that Americans in poorer regions died at nearly twice the rate of those in richer countries. Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor who led a team of economists in producing the report, told The Guardian this was a failure of social justice: “The burden of disease – in terms of deaths, illness, and economic costs – was borne disproportionately by the poor, women, and people of color. The poor were America’s essential workers, on the frontlines, saving lives and also incurring disease and death.” 

The Guardian

Kinsey agrees with this sentiment but adds that this isn’t a phenomenon that began in 2020. “[During the pandemic], people who were classified as mandatory or essential workers had to just keep putting themselves in harm’s way,” she says. “[But] as a working-class person, you’re supposed to literally throw your whole body and sacrifice your entire self for this capitalist system. Our big schtick [in America] has been you can change social classes here, but what are you going to have to do to achieve this? A lot of the time, you basically set yourself on fire so future generations can be more comfortable.” 

The pressure to be productive infiltrates all levels of American society. According to the APA’s 2021 Work and Wellbeing survey, 79% of employees experienced work-related stress in the month prior to the study and three in five reported negative impacts such as lack of interest, motivation, or energy. Additionally, 44% reported physical fatigue as a result of work stress and 32% were suffering from emotional exhaustion. 

 “This obsession with always being productive feels uniquely American,” says Kinsey. “That you should wear yourself ragged trying to prove you’re an asset, that you’re a valuable contributing member of society. Even the idea that anything you do for your wellbeing should somehow make you more productive – the only reason companies are focused on corporate wellness, for example, is to reduce absenteeism.” 

But there’s something of a generational shift in attitudes as Gen Z enters the workforce, Kinsey adds, particularly as a nationwide labor shortage puts the power back in workers’ hands. A record number of Americans quit their jobs in 2021, and there’s been a notable uptick in union activity, with workers at Starbucks, Amazon, and Kellogg’s all attempting to unionize. 

 “Gen Z has lived through so many things early in their experience of being in the workforce,” says Kinsey. “Their boundaries are just really different. They’re more aware of the fact that you must advocate for yourself at work. You have to set boundaries because work will just keep on taking until there’s nothing left.” 

Discovering a more inclusive idea of wellness

Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop empire started as an exploration of healing foods to help her father manage his cancer diagnosis. Since its newsletter launch in 2008, Goop has expanded into the wellness space, targeting predominantly White, middle- to upper-class women. 

A Little Bit Human

 But its approach doesn’t take differences into account and excludes people from feeling like wellness is for them, says Kinsey. “We’ve been told this is what it means to be well. What they do is not encourage their followers to focus on themselves and what’s meaningful to them. It’s projecting an ideal based on whatever the cultural ideal is at the moment, telling them ‘hey, you can do this too’, when, in reality, a lot of people can’t.” 

This is something Kinsey sees in the body positivity movement as well, which has been monetized by brands hoping to cash in on the trend. “It’s another one of those bait and switch situations where you think you’re being offered freedom,” she adds. “It turns into an extension of what we already have – just another way to uphold existing systems – that the cis, White, male, able body is the best body. The tiny bit of inclusion that is offered feels like crumbs in the mainstream body positivity movement… If body positivity was meant to help people feel more free, to feel at home in their bodies, does that need to be monetized?” 

, Fariha Róisín identifies four aspects of wellness – mind, body, self-care, and justice. 

The Washington Post

 Similarly, Kinsey has found that exploring culturally-specific practices and community care helps marginalized people ground and center themselves in wellbeing. This might be through taking time to cook culturally resonant food or engaging in wellness activities like yoga and meditation. In 2018, journalist Alex Zaragoza attempted to ‘decolonize’ her diet by eating as her Mexican ancestors would have done. “Since it has nothing to do with counting calories, weight loss, or body judgment, there’s something revolutionary about this diet; it’s about using food as a way to tap into identity, feeling good, and being as cognizant of food justice as you are flavors,” she wrote about the experiment for Glamour. 

“The idea of returning to something that a lot of our ancestors would have practiced feels nourishing,” says Kinsey. “It feels like you can follow your heart, do what feels right to you, that there’s no set way to believe or do it properly. The idea that you can’t ever completely erase culture, that you can’t ever really lose who you are is very nurturing and uplifting. That’s another very American thing and is part of the oppression to tell us that we don’t have any culture when we clearly do.” 

For brands that operate in the wellness sphere, Kinsey’s book highlights how diverse and inclusive notions of wellbeing can be. “I focus a lot on my emotional wellbeing,” she says. “Usually, when I exercise, it’s for the emotional regulation aspect. I may not choose a form of exercise that burns a lot of calories. I want something that’s going to help calm my nervous system.” 

, many are increasingly seeking a sense of balance rather than brutal regimes that pursue perfection. One company that’s challenging tired stereotypes of over-the-top wellness trends is 

. By including playfulness and humor in its August 2022 campaign, it highlighted the toxicity of hardcore health fads that chase constant self-improvement. Meanwhile, plus-size creators and models such as 

 are challenging the notion that you have to be White and thin to ‘be well’. Her Style Therapy series, for example, covers everything from body confidence to how style can fuel personal growth. 

Refinery29

 is a meme account and podcast challenging the mainstream approach to wellness.

People expect brands to behave with integrity and many want them to share their values – but any such expressions have to feel authentic and not stray into cultural appropriation. Kinsey points to Walmart, which released a Juneteenth-themed ice cream bearing a label that read: “Share and celebrate African American culture, emancipation, and enduring hope.” Celebrated on June 19th, Juneteenth commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people and was officially recognized as a federal holiday in 2021. 

 It’s also a day many people remember those who died. “It seemed so forced, like somebody had said, ‘here are things that Black people say,’ and [Walmart] just put it on the packaging,” says Kinsey. “How was there no one at the table to say, ‘this is so inappropriate because it’s bringing lightness to something that I don’t believe our customers relate to in a light way.’” 

 She adds that companies need to build diversity into their teams and make it safe for workers from marginalized backgrounds to express their concerns. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, brands such as Depop have hired diversity and inclusion leads and set tangible targets to increase Black representation at all levels of the company. 

Depop

Google, Strava, Squarespace, and Green Chef

 – are working with diversity and inclusion training provider 

 to create compassionate spaces for uncomfortable workplace conversations.

“If brands want to have a decolonial approach, they really need to accept the influence that White supremacy has had on what they perceive as valuable, what they perceive as beautiful, and reckon with how they can subvert that going forward,” says Kinsey. 

 is aiming to challenge racial barriers to wellness by dedicating $7 million toward making the outdoors an equal place for all to explore, and 

 included a model with Indigenous face tattoos in a spring 2022 beauty campaign. “At the root of it all is this belief in hierarchy,” Kinsey adds. “If we could get rid of that, then there’s room for working-class White people to be better off, there’s room for people of color to be better off, and for queer people to be better off too. We’re not better than anyone else. We’re all people. The goal is just to make room for everyone to be able to be themselves.” 

 of people believe wellness is important and 

 US adults were living with a mental illness in 2020 – a proportion that rose to 

 among those identifying with two or more races 

 of American employees experienced work-related stress in the month prior

The contemporary and highly commodified notion of wellness is targeted at the wealthy and able-bodied rather than the marginalized communities that need it most

The societal pressure to be productive influences how people and companies often perceive self-care – a way to improve oneself to increase status or earnings

Subverting these ideas is crucial to making wellness more inclusive and helping people ‘be well’ according to their specific needs and backgrounds

Dalia Kinsey is a holistic registered dietitian, the author of 

 podcast. Dedicated to health equity, Dalia teaches people to use nutrition as a self-care and personal empowerment tool to counter the damage of chronic stress. She works at the intersection of holistic wellness and social justice, continually creating wellness tools and resources that centre the most vulnerable individuals who hold multiple marginalised identities. Dalia crafts practical, inclusive, and effective corporate wellness workshops that empower participants to identify their perfect wellness formula and permanently improve their health.

United States

Physical health

Mental health

Spanning everything from healthcare to tourism to workplace programs, wellness is a trillion-dollar industry. But who is it really for? Canvas8 spoke to dietician and author Dalia Kinsey about the impact that wellness ideals have on marginalized people and how brands can decolonize the sector.

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