What’s Wrong With the Wellness Industry? The Truth About Whitewashed, Capitalist Wellness Culture

Wellness Has Been Hijacked

Wellness used to be about community care, healing, and wholeness. It was about reconnecting with our bodies, honoring ancestral traditions, and supporting each other. But today? It’s been hijacked by whitewashed, capitalist individualism and sold back to us as something we must constantly strive for—one biohacked morning routine, one detox tea, one expensive retreat at a time.

Mainstream wellness culture sells us a sanitized, airbrushed promise of a life free from suffering—so long as we buy the right supplements, follow the right trendy diet, and, inexplicably, put coffee where coffee should never go.

But here’s the thing: wellness is not a luxury good. It is your birthright.

Let’s talk about how the wellness industry is failing us—and how we reclaim true, liberatory wellness.

How the Wellness Industry Keeps You Stuck

1. The Illusion of Balance: Who Really Has Access to Wellness?

Wellness culture loves to talk about “balance.” But balance for whom?

When the entire system is built on the unpaid and underpaid labor of women of color, when rest and safety are a privilege, how can balance be an individual pursuit?

💡 Wellness influencers will tell you the answer is more self-care.
💡 Biohacking gurus will tell you the answer is an optimized routine.
💡 The wellness industry will tell you the answer is to buy more.

But none of them will ask the real question:

🚨 Why are we exhausted in the first place?

Mainstream wellness tells us:
✔️ If you just try harder, you’ll feel good.
✔️ If you meditate through your rage, it will go away.
✔️ If you “optimize” your focus, you’ll finally be successful.

But it never asks:
❌ Who profits from your endless self-improvement?
❌ Why is your worth tied to productivity?
❌ Why are you exhausted, dysregulated, and burned out?

This is not wellness. This is a capitalist coping mechanism dressed up as self-care.

2. The Wellness Industry Exploits People Failed by Western Medicine

Let’s be real: I get why people are frustrated with Western medicine.

🚨 Women’s pain is dismissed at higher rates than men’s.
🚨 BIPOC patients receive less pain management—even for identical conditions.
🚨 Fat patients are told to “just lose weight” instead of getting real care.
🚨 Most clinical trials overwhelmingly study white men—leaving everyone else out.

And when people feel ignored, gaslit, or dismissed by doctors, they turn to alternative wellness spaces for answers.

But here’s the trap:

💡 The void left by conventional medicine isn’t just empty—it’s been filled with wellness grifters selling lies.

The wellness industry tells people exactly what they want to hear:

“We believe you.”
“Your pain is real.”
“We have the answers.”

And for a while, that feels comforting. Until you realize…

❌ If you’re still sick, they’ll tell you it’s because you’re not trying hard enough.
❌ If their protocol doesn’t work, they’ll say you didn’t follow it correctly.
❌ If you question their claims, they’ll call you “brainwashed” by Big Pharma.

And that’s when wellness starts looking a lot like a cult.

The Cultural Appropriation & Colonialism of Wellness Culture

And while the wellness industry is busy selling panic, it’s also busy stealing from marginalized communities.

💰 Yoga was a spiritual practice before it became a thin white woman’s Instagram aesthetic.
💰 Breathwork, chanting, and herbalism belong to the cultures that created them—not to white “shamans” charging $500 for cacao ceremonies.
💰 Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Indigenous plant medicine existed long before they were rebranded as “superfoods.”

And when the actual people from these traditions speak up?

❌ They’re told they’re being “too sensitive.”
❌ They’re told “wellness is for everyone!”
❌ They’re told that white influencers are “honoring” their culture by monetizing it.

🚨 Colonialism never ended—it just rebranded as Goop.

Reclaiming Wellness: Feminist Wellness vs. White Wellness Culture

Feminist Wellness	White Wellness Industrial Complex
Healing is relational and collective.	Healing is an expensive, individual pursuit.
Acknowledges systemic oppression as a root cause of trauma and burnout.	Frames trauma and burnout as a personal mindset problem.
Centers rest, pleasure, and ease as birthrights.	Frames rest as something you must earn.
Rooted in interdependence—healing happens in community.	Rooted in hyper-individualism—healing happens alone.

 

🚨 If your wellness doesn’t include community care, mutual aid, and fighting for systemic change—then it is not wellness.

Final Thoughts: The Truth About Real Wellness

The wellness industry wants you to believe that healing is a solo journey.
That if you just biohack hard enough, optimize enough, restrict enough, detox enough, you will be rewarded with perfect health.

🚨 But no amount of bone broth, breathwork, or biohacking can fix capitalism.
🚨 No supplement will undo oppression.
🚨 No morning routine will solve systemic inequity.

Because real wellness isn’t about personal optimization—it’s about collective liberation.

And if that disrupts the wellness industrial complex?

🔥 Good. 🔥
🔥 It was never built for us anyway. 🔥

 

Love this conversation? Hear the full discussion on our podcast, where we unpack the truth about the wellness industry and explore what real healing looks like. Listen now!