The Wellness Trap

Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses, and Find Your True Well-Being

By: Christy Harrison

Narrated by: Christy Harrison

From the paradigm-shifting author of Anti-Diet comes a deep dive into the underbelly of modern wellness culture and how it stands in the way of true well-being.

“It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle.” You've probably heard this phrase from any number of people in the wellness space. But as Christy Harrison reveals in her latest book, wellness culture promotes a standard of health that is often both unattainable and deeply harmful.

Many people with chronic illness understandably feel dismissed or abandoned by the healthcare system and find solace in alternative medicine, as Harrison once did. Yet the wellness industry promotes practices that often cause even more damage than the conventional approaches they’re meant to replace. From the lack of pre-market safety testing on herbal and dietary supplements, to the unfounded claims made by many wellness influencers and functional-medicine providers, to the social-media algorithms driving users down rabbit holes of wellness mis- and disinformation, it can often feel like no one is looking out for us in the face of the $4.4 trillion global wellness industry.

The Wellness Trap delves into the persistent, systemic problems with that industry, offering insight into its troubling pattern of cultural appropriation and its destructive views on mental health, and shedding light on how a growing distrust of conventional medicine has led ordinary people to turn their backs on science. Weaving together history, memoir, reporting, and practical advice, Harrison illuminates the harms of wellness culture while re-imagining our society’s relationship with well-being.

©2023 Christy Harrison (P)2023 Little, Brown Spark

Critic reviews

"Christy Harrison's wise, calm, and thoughtful voice has helped to guide thousands of people out of diet culture and into a better, more peaceful relationship with food and their bodies. In The Wellness Trap she continues this vital work, raising incisive questions and helping us to unlearn decades of marketing and pseudoscience and reject a definition of "health" that is both dangerous and impossible to sustain. Harrison's work is a gift and I am so grateful to have this on my bookshelf."—Virginia Sole-Smith, author of Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture

“In this remarkable book, Christy Harrison blows the lid off the wellness industry and exposes its flaws, untruths, and toxicity. She shows how closely wellness culture overlaps with diet culture and offers deep compassion for those who are drawn into its myths. Finally, she offers individual strategies and societal approaches for undoing the harms of wellness culture, while guiding the reader to pursue the holistic concept of “well-being”. This book is a life-changer!”—Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDS-S, Co-author of Intuitive Eating

“Wellness seems like a great goal—who doesn’t want to be well, right? But after reading The Wellness Trap, you’ll see how it is used to distort science and make false promises. With nuance and compassion, Christy deconstructs the history of the idea and shows us how to be well, without being manipulated.”—Alan Levinovitz, author of Natural

Heartbreaking and So Important

It was heartbreaking to read through this essentially wake up call to how the Wellness Industry intentionally and unintentionally preys on those of us seeking answers that simply don’t yet exist to pain and illness. This book provides a grounded and through review of how easy it is to get trapped in a hope and “promise”for a different answer or reality and the profound grief when you finally see it for the unsubstantiated claims they are.

Essential reading in my book

Recommending to everyone. I'm a medical student and this is one of the most useful books I've read for understanding patient experience (including my own).

Great information

Great information. I love to be challenged to think differently. Have already recommended the book to a good friend that I feel is caught in the wellness trap.

Brilliant!

This is a must read. I’ll be buying copies and handing them out to all my friends stuck in the wellness culture. I’ll be exiting now and learning to love myself and take care of my body no matter what size it is and what it throws at me.

Eye opening!

This book made me think more deeply about “wellness” and the impact of a number of holistic practioners, their dubious diagnoses and questionable treatments.