Reclaim ‘wellness’ from the rich and famous, and restore its political radicalism, new book argues
28 March 2024A new cultural history of the 1970s wellness industry offers urgent lessons for today. It reveals that in the seventies, wellness was neither narcissistic nor self-indulgent, and nor did its practice involve buying expensive, on-trend luxury products. Instead, wellness emphasised social well-being just as much as it focused on the needs of the individual. Wellness practitioners thought of self-care as a way of empowering people to prioritise their health so that they could also enhance the well-being of those around them.