Larocca’s tour is a lively one, full of information and humor ... The second half of How to Be Well reads like a survey course, cramming the industry’s relationship to politics, men and the environment into single chapters when each could fill a whole semester ... But when Larocca goes deep, as she does on self-care, body confidence and sex positivity, she’s at her best—authoritative and witty, personal without being chummy ... And finally, refreshingly, she’s honest about the money at stake for the wellness-industrial complex—not just for stylists turned wellness coaches or models turned nutritionists, but for massive corporations cashing in on an age of worry ... And that, as How to Be Well wisely shows us, is the bottom line.
A fun-house mirror held up to my Gen X soul ... Her book is expertly researched—she delved into the origins of yoga fads, steeped herself in Harvard studies, and hopped onto a colonic table. But rather than just offering a fascinating history of wellness, she has written a searing portrait of over-the-top well women in search of meaning ... It’s a sociological study of the die-hard believers, who embrace astrology, crystals, and meditation, and the guerilla skeptics (me!) who question it all.
Sets out to capture the depth and breadth of the wellness invasion—its fads, its legitimate practices, and its so-called cures. Larocca details the impressive variety of forms wellness can take ... Larocca does a good job of both explaining the wellness industry and ferreting out its scammier corners.
Larocca offers interesting portraits of famous people like Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow (a wellness 'she-god') and regular people like herself, admitting the 'embarrassing truth' that her socioeconomic status is most relevant to her health. Readers will find lots of informative and entertaining food (or juice) for thought.
Larocca takes on the wellness biz with a healthy dose of skepticism, and the result is both eye-opening and good fun ... A sharply pointed look at the vast wellness industry and 'the burden of being healthy and attractive' it places on consumers ... Larocca is excellent on the New Age aspect of the wellness business, with its mantras and microbiome-supporting organic coffee and mindfulness.
The nuanced analysis notes that while wellness culture’s appeal stems in part from legitimate concerns about the pharmaceutical industry’s insidious influence on mainstream medicine, the supplements hawked by alternative medicine practitioners are usually subject to the same corrupting profit motives. Penetrating and thought-provoking, this will cause readers to think twice before reaching for the latest purported cure-all.
