#wellness-culture

#wellness-culture

The average Thanksgiving meal, Johnson warned on social media, was "roughly equal in metabolic injury" to smoking seven cigarettes. He tabulated the average calories, fat, carbs, sugar, and salt of the typical spread, all high. And he painted a picture of the damage the meal would do to one's body: "massive glucose spikes," "oxidative stress," "immune suppression," "sleep disruption," and "acute endothelial dysfunction."

At thirty years old, I have been teaching yoga for a third of my life. In my corner of the world, it's almost like a clique. Everyone knows who's who, and what's more menacing is that everybody seems to know each other's business. Of course, there are pluses and minuses, but for the most part, it feels more like a popularity contest than a viable career.

My gym's recovery fitness options include a sauna, a cold plunge and a hot tub. The sauna easily gets the most play. Sometimes there are so many people in there that hopefuls are forced to wait outside, shivering in their swimwear. The cold plunge is also really popular, but on a rotational basis. People tend to pop in for two minutes or so, often monitoring their process via a clock on the wall, as if performing a plank, then swap out.

When wellness becomes a disguise for control, harmful eating habits can be misunderstood or praised, obscuring the line between healthy behaviors and eating disorders.