excellence, actually18 Jan 2024

005 - How the Cult of Wellness is Failing Us (with Kate Bowler)

What if I told you our country's approach to wellness was heavily influenced by the history of American religion? Kate Bowler, a professor of religious history at Duke, traces the self-betterment movement back to America's "prosperity gospel," which promised that true believers of God would be rewarded with health, wealth, and happiness. Replace "God" with diet, workouts, supplements, self-help books, and time management systems and you've pretty much described today's billion-dollar health and wellness industry. And just like the prosperity gospel, the cult of wellness makes promises—about how we're masters of our universe, and how we can conquer any limit—that it can't always keep, a realization Kate had when she was diagnosed with stage four cancer at age 35. Clay and Kate discuss Kate's story and how it complicates and deepens our cultural obsession with being the best version of ourselves.

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