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

Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

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).

Good reading for those open and flexible enough in their thinking to hearing the message

Unlike some other reviewers, I did not come into this book with preconceived notions or an academic position to defend - I thought this book and Christy Harrison’s previous book was useful for learning how to interact with HCP to receive the best possible care and how to skeptically but fairly evaluate wellness practices in the common age. With a few scientifically evidenced exceptions (eliminating gluten for celiac disease, yoga and meditation for stress reduction for some folks), many wellness practices can be neutral or even harmful and often part people readily and sometimes catastrophically from their hard-earned money. This book is part of the well-needed field of lifting the hood of wellness practices, such as the Maintenance Phase podcast. Although the book was a little long, I did learn a lot.

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.

Nuanced, balanced exploration

I was stunned at Harrison's ability to unpack so many layers of the history of, motivation for, and dangers of wellness culture, and how intertwined it is with so much else in American culture, especially the limits and failings of (despite so often the best of intentions) our current medical system. I am not surprised to read negative reactions in other reviews, as that is a perfectly reasonable knee jerk response if you are encountering this content for the first time. I sincerely hope that folks on both the medical side and the wellness side are able to come into this book with an open mind and curiosity, and start to engage in deeper conversations about how we can all move towards more true well being.

A motherhood must read!!

As an intuitive eating counselor and anti diet professional I thought I was above getting sucked into well meaning, but damaging “wellness traps.” Boy, was I wrong!

I found this book to be a must read for moms because we are being targeted by endless attempts to prey on reasonable and protective fears we have during the years of pregnancy, post parting and child raising. The wellness trap makes us often more scared and fearful than we already are!! Christy hits the nail on the head with calling it a trap! Just trust me, this book is worth your time!

THE wellness book of the year

I bought this book because it was featured on the news, and already I could see why because THIS is the book you need in order to get out of, well, “the wellness trap” but other traps you may not have realized you’ve been entangled in.

So healing + validating

Having been duped many years ago with pseudo science, a leaky gut + candida diagnosis and paying thousands for testing and supplements I couldn't afford, I cannot even put into words how validating it was to hear someone call bullsh!t on the whole thing. I learned a lot listening to Christy's book and so appreciate the research to back up her claims. As with every book, take what works and leave what doesn't. But I would definitely recommend this read.

excellent, with research to back it up

I wish everyone would read this before spending money on so- called wellness products.

Not what I expected

She dived really deep into political viewpoints, which was important to make a point but the whole book became very repetitive. Her first book I found to be much more interesting and engaging!