How to Be Well: Without Spending All Your Money and Losing Your Mind
A deeply researched, lively, and personal exploration of the multibillion-dollar wellness industry -- about why women are feeling so un-well and how this trend has shaped our thinking about health and self-care

Peloton. Pilates. Biohacking. Colonics. Ashwagandha. Today, the wellness industry is a $3.7 trillion behemoth that touches us all. In this timely and clear-eyed book, journalist Amy Larocca peels back the layers behind the wellness movement and reckons with its promises and profits. How did we get here and how did the idea of wellness become integrated with women's lives? And how did we end up spending so much money on products that may not work at all?

Amy Larocca takes readers into the communities that swear by their activated charcoal toothpaste and green juice enemas, explaining what each of these practices really is—and what the science says. Larocca holds a magnifying glass to alternative medicine and nouveau lifestyle prescriptions -- and tries a lot herself along the way -- ultimately delivering an assessment of how the wellness industry embodies our (gendered, class-based, racialized) perceptions of care and self-improvement, and how it preys on our unshakable fear of the unknown. She traces the history of how the beauty and fashion industries have peddled snake oil to women for decades—and why we keep coming back for more.

A clear-eyed and honest portrait of the weird world of wellness, How to Be Well lays bare the ways in which the simple notion of caring for oneself has become a seriously big business.
1145412541
How to Be Well: Without Spending All Your Money and Losing Your Mind
A deeply researched, lively, and personal exploration of the multibillion-dollar wellness industry -- about why women are feeling so un-well and how this trend has shaped our thinking about health and self-care

Peloton. Pilates. Biohacking. Colonics. Ashwagandha. Today, the wellness industry is a $3.7 trillion behemoth that touches us all. In this timely and clear-eyed book, journalist Amy Larocca peels back the layers behind the wellness movement and reckons with its promises and profits. How did we get here and how did the idea of wellness become integrated with women's lives? And how did we end up spending so much money on products that may not work at all?

Amy Larocca takes readers into the communities that swear by their activated charcoal toothpaste and green juice enemas, explaining what each of these practices really is—and what the science says. Larocca holds a magnifying glass to alternative medicine and nouveau lifestyle prescriptions -- and tries a lot herself along the way -- ultimately delivering an assessment of how the wellness industry embodies our (gendered, class-based, racialized) perceptions of care and self-improvement, and how it preys on our unshakable fear of the unknown. She traces the history of how the beauty and fashion industries have peddled snake oil to women for decades—and why we keep coming back for more.

A clear-eyed and honest portrait of the weird world of wellness, How to Be Well lays bare the ways in which the simple notion of caring for oneself has become a seriously big business.
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How to Be Well: Without Spending All Your Money and Losing Your Mind

How to Be Well: Without Spending All Your Money and Losing Your Mind

by Amy Larocca
How to Be Well: Without Spending All Your Money and Losing Your Mind

How to Be Well: Without Spending All Your Money and Losing Your Mind

by Amy Larocca

eBook

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Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on April 22, 2025

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Overview

A deeply researched, lively, and personal exploration of the multibillion-dollar wellness industry -- about why women are feeling so un-well and how this trend has shaped our thinking about health and self-care

Peloton. Pilates. Biohacking. Colonics. Ashwagandha. Today, the wellness industry is a $3.7 trillion behemoth that touches us all. In this timely and clear-eyed book, journalist Amy Larocca peels back the layers behind the wellness movement and reckons with its promises and profits. How did we get here and how did the idea of wellness become integrated with women's lives? And how did we end up spending so much money on products that may not work at all?

Amy Larocca takes readers into the communities that swear by their activated charcoal toothpaste and green juice enemas, explaining what each of these practices really is—and what the science says. Larocca holds a magnifying glass to alternative medicine and nouveau lifestyle prescriptions -- and tries a lot herself along the way -- ultimately delivering an assessment of how the wellness industry embodies our (gendered, class-based, racialized) perceptions of care and self-improvement, and how it preys on our unshakable fear of the unknown. She traces the history of how the beauty and fashion industries have peddled snake oil to women for decades—and why we keep coming back for more.

A clear-eyed and honest portrait of the weird world of wellness, How to Be Well lays bare the ways in which the simple notion of caring for oneself has become a seriously big business.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780525655541
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 04/22/2025
Sold by: Random House
Format: eBook
Pages: 272

About the Author

Amy Larocca is an award-winning American journalist. She spent 20 years working at New York magazine as both Fashion Director and Editor at Large. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Town & Country and the London Review of Books, among others. She lives with her family in New York and North London.
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