Have We Been Sold A Lie?

I’ve come to believe that we’ve been sold a long and lucrative lie about wellness.

The lie?

That being healthy is complicated. That it depends on keeping up with the latest fads, programmes, biohacking, books, products and data tracking. Oh, and that doing it all is ‘just’ a simple case of changing our habits.

The opposite, I think, is probably closer to the truth.

Because what really matters when it comes to health is often remarkably simple. It begins with consistently doing the basics we’ve heard a million times before: Eating a nourishing (enough) diet. Moving regularly. Sleeping well. Managing stress. Spending time doing the things we enjoy. Not smoking or drinking too much alcohol. Seeking appropriate medical care when we need it.

But doing all of it, day-in, day-out? That’s often another story entirely.

Doing the basics consistently is hard. Sometimes really hard. Which is probably why so few of us manage to stick with it all. This is not, however, generally down to a lack of knowledge, or effort, or an acute deficiency of productivity hacks or magical apps.

In fact, we live in an age of information overload. Wellness is a multi-trillion-dollar industry. Most of us want to feel better, and we often already know what to do (or where to find out more information).

But actually doing it?

That's where things can start to get tricky.

Because that's also when we start to run into the hugely complex web of hidden influences that often get in our way. Barriers that are so often conveniently overlooked in most health literature or marketing - in case they might stop us trying, or buying. Yet, I'll hazard a guess, we have all experienced at least some of them in our own lives.

Time can be tight. Budgets limited. Our mental load may already be stretched in a hundred directions. We might have pre-existing disease, live in a place with limited access to services and safe outdoor spaces, or perhaps need to prioritise demanding care-giving responsibilities. Not to mention the powerful systemic forces that shape all of our choices, from policy to technology, climate to industry. The list goes on, and these barriers are far from equally shared.

Yet these are the real challenges I think we need to start addressing in wellness (not just in public health policy).

Health may be simple, but it's not easy.