(2) Wellness Culture: Four Concerns
In part one, I defined wellness culture and did a brief summary on the Bible’s teachings of our bodies and physical health. Before sharing my concerns with wellness culture, I’d like to go more in depth with what this culture actually looks like:
What is wellness culture?
I’m covering many different categories when I talk about wellness culture: the crunchy community, gym culture, health-focused MLMs, etc. In some ways, this is unfair because each subculture has its own identity and each one can be completely different from another. However, my goal isn’t to evaluate the pros and cons of each possible subculture, but to simply evaluate the general cultural approach to health.
For the purpose of this post, I’m defining wellness culture as the trend of pursuing health above all else, sometimes with a distrust of mainstream medical practices.
For example:
Fitness influencers spending hours at the gym, filming themselves at less-than-modest angles or wearing revealing clothing, seeking to create a certain physique
An instagram account where the influencer promises that following her health protocol (purchasing her expensive program) will fix your thyroid, heal cancer, etc.
Individuals who are abnormally and perpetually anxious due to their concerns about toxic exposure from normal/everyday things (was that snack organic? Was the public restroom cleaned with harmful chemicals? etc.) These fears are usually fed through the internet and social media.
Is it new? Where did it come from?
The trend of wellness culture is new, simply because of the rapid growth and usage first of the internet, then social media, in the last fifteen years. Suddenly, alternative ways of approaching health were not isolated to in-person chats and information only from your doctor, but readily available for any stranger searching symptoms anywhere around the world. Influencer culture and the ability to monetize social media accounts and blogs also led the way for health to be someone’s job; whether this was a way to advertise as a consultant for a bigger company, or any individual creating their own health course or shop, regardless of qualifications.
However, wellness itself is not new! Since God created Adam and Eve, humans have always sought health in a sin-cursed world. Each generation has had its own mistakes and breakthroughs in this area, and the present generation is no different.
Spiritual Health over Physical Health
Photo by Derick McKinney on Unsplash
In part one, I gave a quick look at what the Bible says about our bodies and health, taking away the fact that our spiritual state is infinitely more important than our pursuit of physical health. Of course, this does not discount the value that our bodies have as created by God and our responsibility to take care of ourselves, but it shows us how easy it can be to have physical and health goals outweigh our need for spiritual growth. With this Bible perspective in mind, I’d like to share four concerns I have with today’s “wellness culture”.
Concern 1: New Age Religion
The wellness community is permeated with New Age thinking, and we must be much more discerning with it. I often see that health-based MLM’s frequently promote motivational speakers to their clients; these speakers encourage manifestation or other New Age practices. which sometimes may feel deceptive as their goal is to make more money for the parent company. There are influencers who promote extreme views of essential oils or specific diets that supposedly guarantee healing; others recommend spiritual enlightenment for healing that actually are methods of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taism, or even occult practices.
Perhaps the most common one I have seen is the popularity of yoga. Contrary to popular opinion, yoga is not just “stretching”. Yoga is a physical practice where the poses are designed to attain a state of mental and physical liberation or to worship a false god. It is used in many of the eastern religions, especially Hinduism. Yet it appears in many wellness and holistic communities as a way to relax your mind and stretch your body. Keep in mind that this practice is not innocent and the purpose of yoga is in opposition to the Bible.
Concern 2: Pursuit of Perfection
Pursuing health sounds like a good thing, but this can be a cover for an obsession with pursuing perfection. First, we have access to an endless amount of information available on the internet when it comes to health, and not all of it is good, true, or helpful. While it is good to learn and apply good health practices, we weren’t created to know everything. Nor can we handle this amount of information or discern how to apply it properly. Only God is infinite and has total knowledge and wisdom of how our unique bodies operate.
Yet I’m concerned by the amount of Christians who seek to attain a state of perfection: maybe finding the the perfect amount of calorie intake or macro balance will result in a body they are happy with. Maybe it’s hours of workouts seeking to improve what they consider a problematic physique. Perhaps it’s self-diagnosis of different diseases or illnesses in an attempt to “fix” themselves and their perceived health needs. Maybe it’s the belief that if we exercise and eat right while we are young, we will avoid terrible a terrible diagnosis in the future.
Many health accounts online portray a false confidence that you can know everything there is to know, and then you can fix yourself (after purchasing someone’s program, of course). While there is truth to the fact that we can use our research to wisely take care of our bodies, we can’t heal ourselves. We don’t have that power, and we shouldn’t seek to control our bodies in this way. We can’t know everything there is to know—only God is omnipresent. Too much information which often leads to anxiety. An even more harmful extreme of this mentality is through eating disorders.
Please understand that I’m not saying that it is wrong to research online or that we can’t learn helpful things and apply it! We must do this process prayerfully, asking God to give us discernment, and without a prideful mentality that we can fix ourselves. We must also understand that we will never attain perfect health; we live in a sinful world and one effect is physical death. So we must let go of the ghost of attaining perfection in this world.
Concern 3: Lack of discernment
Christians can display a lack of discernment as they consider health information online. Many influencers market themselves as health professionals, but few have specialized training and study to back it up. Yet, some take prey upon of your health needs or fears as an opportunity to make money. “It’s not your fault,” they explain in their promotional posts or reels, “you’re simply a victim of xyz—purchase my protocol to fix it.”
This does not mean that anyone who promotes a health program or fitness protocol is taking advantage of you, or promoting misinformation. But Christians must be wise as they interact with anyone offering them health advice or wellness instruction—especially where fears and money are involved!
There are many health products that influencers have promoted over the past few years; a few that I’ve personally seen marketed to me include certain brands of fitness equipment, a sana, red-light therapy, supplements, drinks, cold plunging, etc. While I don’t doubt that many of these recommendations do have positive results, the point is simply that people are making money off their recommendations, and some will be portraying things as “necessary” only to make money. Sometimes scare tactics are used. We must be discerning with anything and anyone that we allow to influence us!
Concern 4: Idolization of aesthetics
Perhaps gym culture is more guilty of this than any other aspect of wellness culture! Of course, going to a gym or working out is not wrong; I personally have benefited from at-home strength training workouts. However, there is a side of gym culture where physical aesthetics are valued above all else. Some train with long-term goals for being active and involved with their current life, or to be strong later in life; but many train purely for a certain body or image.
I see many videos of women working out wearing immodest clothing, camera angles sensually displaying their bodies. Even men are not immune from this vanity, for that is what it is. We must change our mindset from attaining a certain image or version of ourselves, and instead use physical discipline only as a catalyst for our daily godliness and spiritual service to God.
In 1 Timothy 4:10, Paul referenced spiritual laboring and striving. I know many who work hard to be physically disciplined, whether by eating a strict, whole foods diet, investing hundreds of dollars in wellness products, or by spending countless hours in the gym. Time, money, and efforts are required for this level of commitment, and this is where wellness culture can easily become an idol.
However, as Paul said, serving God will also require labor and striving. Just as physical fitness and wellness requires efforts, spiritual service is not easy.
When Christians are so devoted to their health and wellness at the expense of their service to God, priorities have been wrong. It is Biblical to put our main efforts into serving God, giving Him the best of our energy and time, rather than devoting the best to ourselves and our physical health and wellness. As Paul said in 1 Timothy 4, bodily discipline has some value—but only some. God certainly doesn’t want us to neglect it, but have we elevated wellness to an idol? Have we succumbed to ungodly practices in our desire for health? Only you can answer that.
Have you also seen these concerns in wellness culture? What comments would you add to this list?
