Open Society

healthism disproportionately harms individuals with disabilities and chronic illnesses

Healthism’s framing of well-being as a series of correct choices perpetuates the idea that if you are ill, it must be because you made incorrect choices.

The wellness industry was built to serve those who are already well—and shuts out those who are not

The current wellness movement, says Mckenzie, assumes that everyone has the same goal of striving to be the best and healthiest version of themselves. “But some people are just trying to survive,” she says.

What it means to live “well” and the goals of wellness need to expand to accommodate this reality. Our singular, idealized image of perfect health (you can picture her: the thin, able-bodied, uber-successful wellness maven who fits in a Peloton ride at 5:00 a.m. before working a full day and then feeding her kids a nutritious dinner and tucking them into bed) must be replaced with individualized definitions of wellness that take into account inevitable, unavoidable, and often incurable health conditions. The wellness goal for some people may be to “slightly improve their quality of life or change their mindset,” says Mckenzie.

Currently, one in four adults in the United States have some sort of disability. And what’s more, not a single person on Earth will remain in perfect health forever, Harrison points out. Wellness culture needs to embrace this reality so that it can actually promote well-being under any circumstances. “I think we as a society could be more open to accepting that people get sick and get old and die and have disabilities,” says Harrison. “Because then the world would be a much more hospitable place for the disabled.”