The Wellness Industry's Influence: Part 1

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Beth [00:00:00]  Blown off is the word that I would use to describe the vast majority of the conversations that I've had when I am seeking health care, not just doctors, nurses, people who work in doctor's offices. And I am not mad at anybody who does this work because I know that you're never just talking about care when you're talking about these issues, you're talking about health insurance, you're talking about liability issues. And I think that's part of what connected with me when I was reading about birth that a lot of the decisions made around birth were financial and liability avoidant decisions instead of decisions about the best possible care. 

Sarah [00:00:45] This is Sarah Stewart Holland. 

Beth [00:00:47] And this is Beth Silvers. 

Sarah [00:00:49] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. 

Sarah [00:01:04] Welcome to Pantsuit Politics, we are so glad you joined us today. This week we're going to be talking about the wellness industry and the anti-vaccine movement and how they are related. Today, we're going to start by sharing our own personal journeys with the wellness industry before diving into some of the history of how we got to this point. And of course, make sure you stay to the end because we're going to be talking about Sad Girl Autumn on outside politics and the big album releases from both Taylor Swift and Adele. And this is a two parter, so we will be back on Friday's show to talk more specifically about the wellness to QAnon pipeline and how that is interwoven with the anti-vaccine movement. So we're going to have you covered for those long Thanksgiving drives, and we just really appreciate you joining us for what we anticipate being quite a vulnerable conversation. 

Beth [00:01:52] Maggie kicked us off over the weekend on Instagram with a very vulnerable post about her own journey with vaccines and how she really had an anti-vax period in her life that began around natural childbirth. I am sure we'll be returning to that subject throughout our conversations, and I really appreciated the way everyone engaged with that post. I know many of you shared it, and I hope that that sets the table that this is not going to be a shaming couple of episodes. Wherever you are, you have a place in this conversation. We are all navigating these cultural winds together, and we would really appreciate if you find these conversations valuable, if you would share them with people in your lives because more open-hearted, vulnerable conversation about medicine and our bodies is essential, we believe. This is just right in the core of things we care about here, and we hope that everyone will feel like this is a pretty non-judgmental space to have real conversations about what's happening. 

Sarah [00:02:56] As we were preparing for this show, I did a lot of research, did a lot of reading. Not necessarily any information I hadn't taken in before about the well deserved criticism of the wellness space. But I was trying to be particularly curious about the places in my own life and my own journey where I've fallen prey or just been particularly susceptible to some of the narratives throughout the wellness industry. And that was it's hard, it's hard to look back at your own choices. But I'm not a person that believes like. The regret is to be avoided at all costs. I think regret is a healthy part of being alive, and there's nothing wrong with saying I would have done it differently knowing what I know now. And so that's the attitude I was trying to have as we approach this conversation. What about you, Beth? 

Beth [00:03:53] I tried to bring that spirit to my research as well. My kind of big picture conclusion about myself is that if you think of wellness as a house, I'm very into the foyer. There is a lot just kind of entry to that world that has connected with me that I think has made my life better. I also think there are places where I don't want to say something was oversold. I've never felt particularly preyed upon in this space, but I do think I have overbought. You know, there are places where I think I went a little too far into something and I've had to back out. And I can't seem to separate out how I feel about the wellness space from how I feel about traditional western medicine, which is something I'm enormously grateful for and also something that the vast majority of my experiences have been overwhelmingly negative in the traditional medicine space. And so it's kind of tough to hold this all objectively when I know that I am exactly the person, like when you read about who is attracted to wellness culture, it's me. I'm the right age, the right skin color, I'm the right income level. It's me. And so I did feel very tender as we did all of this research, just trying to sort out where have I found real good here and where have I been, you know, kind of a stereotype of my demographics? 

Sarah [00:05:25] Well, you know, two of the spaces that come up over and over again in this research is yoga and natural births slash homebirth. I've been doing yoga for 20 years at least. It's been enormously helpful in my own life and definitely just in my own sort of fitness journey. You know, I never did any trainings, I did do Bikram yoga for several years of my life, and Bikram yoga has all kinds of special, problematic aspects to it. And I don't feel particularly defensive of my yoga practice. It's hard not to feel defensive of my home births because that is a very that's a very big piece of a lot of these conversations, and it's definitely an on ramp, I think, to a lot of the problematic behaviors we see in sort of like the crunchy mom community, be it anti-vax, but particularly anti-vax. 

[00:06:21] So for those of you who don't know, I gave birth to my first two sons at home with a very well-trained midwife. I will say as I read a lot of these articles and sort of fell down a hole about home birth, which I haven't read or studied a lot because my youngest child is almost seven years old. He was not born at home because there was a snowstorm, but anyway, I was struck by how much that space has changed and how there is just a lot of like, man, I fell down this free birthing hole where people give birth without any assistance at all. And I'm like, Well, this is very different. You know, my midwife was a former nurse and it came with medical equipment. And, you know, I think when Griffin was born, she was on her like three hundredth birth at that point. And I think what I identified though for myself, what I was susceptible to, and I really hesitate to use the word susceptible because it is still true for me. It's not necessarily a distrust of the medical establishment, although I definitely have that not based on any sort of personal experiences, just sort of have absorbed it, right? But it is a particular sensitivity to intervention medically, any medical intervention. I come by that honestly, in my family, my maternal side of my grandmother is like 85 years old, takes no medication, goes to the doctor and they don't believe her there. Like funny, haha, what do you take? And she's like, No, like legit. I don't take anything. Some of that distress, some of that is just, you know, me and my mother, in particular, are just enormously sensitive to medications. Just really almost never do I take something that it helps and doesn't hurt, as well as I'm just sensitive. I'm sensitive to supplements. I have to be very careful what I take supplement-wise. And so when I look back on like some of the choices I've made, particularly with homebirth, it was just an understanding that I am sensitive to intervention and I wanted to avoid intervention at all cost. Not at all cost. Not at the cost of the health of me or my baby. Although, you know, sometimes I read these articles with the I'll just be honest, I read an article recently about homebirths and the way they like kind of laid out the statistics. I'm like, Man, I don't know if I'd read them laid out this way. If I'd made the right, if I'd made the same decision, I do not regret my home births at all. They were incredibly positive experiences, but that's the narrative that runs through my head as I look back over the my sort of journey through wellness, be it yoga, be at home birth, be it supplements, be it whatever it is, even like meditations, is this just desire to avoid medical intervention? 

Beth [00:08:48] I think birth is where a lot of this begins for me as well, and birth collided with the period during which I was really suffering from what was diagnosed as fibromyalgia. I went through a battery of tests for a while. It felt like I was just my full time job was getting a new medical test just to come to some kind of diagnosis. And so a couple of years before I got pregnant with Jane, I went through a battery of drugs to try to manage pain and arrive at some kind of normal functionality in my life. And I discovered exactly what you said, Sarah, that I couldn't find something for me that helped without also hurting, and I was really unhappy with that course of treatment. And I had a really good conversation with a doctor, one of the few good conversations I've had with a doctor in my life, if I'm being honest. All respect to doctors. My kids have wonderful pediatricians. I have just not had good experiences with doctors. But this one was great. And I said to him, I really don't want you to prescribe anything for me. What else can we do? And he said, you can try all kinds of things. You can try massage, you can try water classes, you can try behavioral therapy like there is a world out there for you to explore. That is not my world, and that is not the world I have expertise on and information about for you that I can feel really confident in. What I do is pills. And he said, I wish every patient came in like you and said, I don't want to take pills. What else can I do? And he was like, But that is what I'm here to do. So if there's a time when you want to try that again, come back and we will do our very best to find something that works for you. It was, it was a really wonderful, goal oriented, transparent, here are the risks, here are the benefits conversation. And I will never forget that doctor and I feel so grateful to him. 

[00:10:39] So I get pregnant. I can't take the pills anyway because I'm pregnant, and that's when I start yoga and massage in a serious way. And I did start to feel much, much better. Despite pregnancy being pretty hard for me, I was sick a lot of my pregnancy. I got interested in what I'm going to term loosely as natural childbirth because I did connect with the sentiment, and I don't think I can unlink this from that experience with fibromyalgia at the time. I connected with the sentiment of being pregnant is not sickness, and we treat pregnancy like sickness, and it leads to actual issues that require more interventions. That cascade of interventions idea made a ton of sense to me. And so I wanted to avoid that cascade of interventions best I could. I had hospital births because my husband was less comfortable than I was with the idea of home birth. There are still aspects of my birth that I'm mad about, where I felt like I wasn't heard and listened to and respected as a patient, and I hated being a patient. I have terrible white coat syndrome. I walk into a doctor's office, my blood pressure shoots all the way up. I have to sit in my car now and just do some meditation before I go in to manage it. 

Beth [00:11:58] You know, there are a lot of moments in my life that I can point to and say, Well, here is where my fear comes from. And I have used that to try to be more compassionate about the COVID vaccines, which we'll talk more about in the next episode, because I could much more easily write a story where I am an anti-vaxxer than a person who really values and is more than happy to get vaccines for myself and my kids. 

Sarah [00:12:25] I think that moment where you, you look to guidance to a medical professional who says, like, I do this if you want to go off on that land in the Wellness Lane, you're on your own. I think that's what bothers me, and I feel like that's happened to me a lot where I've been like, I want your professional opinion, and it's just this kind of like hands off of, well, you're on your own. And I think that's like sort of the problem here. I will say that my midwife was the best at offering that type of guidance. You know, she had a medical background, but she now worked as a lay midwife and I would say, and she often counseled me about my diet in very helpful, productive ways. She would talk to me about supplements. She would talk to me about what to pay attention to. She diagnosed my borderline postpartum depression inside about 30 seconds because she spent a lot of time with me on our visits. And when she came to my house, she came to my house every day for like, I think three or four or five days after my children were born and could pick up on those subtleties and counseled me. And it was, you know, it was just a very holistic care that I received from her. I wish all the medical care I got, and I have a primary care physician who I adore. My current OB-GYN cared for me when I lost a pregnancy and performed surgery. And just like the level of care I receive from her when I lost my pregnancy was incredible. But it's always, you know, it's a it's a quick visit, right? It's in and out. And I think like the way that my midwife, the midwife model of care, was so different and it was really what I was hungry for. This like, I'm going to treat you like a whole person. And I think that's what people, you know, want and desire. And, you know, I've even had a friend who was formerly my primary care physician who said, like, I wish I could palpitate abdomen, but they don't teach us that anymore. I wish I could do some of that, like more holistic care. And so I think that's what I found in that space. And yeah, and then it took a life of its own and I wasn't an anti-vaxxer, but I definitely had my kids on the Dr. Sears alternate vaccine schedule. They did not get the vitamin K shot when they were born. They're not circumcised. I'm sure they love that I'm sharing that on the internet right now. But like, you know, I just I did. There was a part of that that I've sort of the home birth was definitely an onramp to. 

[00:14:39] This like, we'll see this, you know, and you can see how it spirals, right? Like so this worked out well. My home births worked out well, some things I controlled, some things I had no control over. I just got blessed with, right? And so it's like, Well, this philosophy served me well here. So let me put it into these other spaces. Let me follow the guidance on this alternative vaccine schedule. My kids were vaccinated, but we did the like. We came in every month and we kind of moved the order around and that kind of thing. And I and I can see now where, like, it's sort of, you know, was this downhill effect and like one thing led to another. And like, you know, I cloth diapered and I made all the baby food and I definitely breastfed. And all these things, like it was like one after the other, after the other because I was in this space of I don't want any intervention. I mean, part of it was my pediatrician who I very much trusted and who was very, you know, evidence-based and who like kind of guided me back. Yeah. Come on back to me, you know, like, come on back over here. And so I think that that was part of it. But it's it is interesting how much of this is like for me anyway, was very linked to my treatment inside the medical community, how I felt about the medical community and just also this awareness that like, you know, everybody is different and mine is, you know, just as unique as everybody else's. And I knew things were affecting me, you know, especially after a long journey with birth control in my 20s and that I had felt like sort of blown off about and I carry that frustration into, you know, this new phase of life. 

Beth [00:16:16] Blown off is the word that I would use to describe the vast majority of the conversations that I've had when I am seeking health care, not just doctors, nurses, people who work in Doctors' offices. And I am not mad at anybody who does this work because I know that you are never just talking about care. When you're talking about these issues, you're talking about health insurance, you're talking about liability issues. And I think that's part of what connected with me when I was reading about birth that a lot of the decisions made around birth were financial and 

Sarah [00:16:49] Yep.  

Beth [00:16:49] Liability avoidant decisions instead of decisions about the best possible care. 

Sarah [00:16:55] This is what I give a lot of grace post natural birth. I don't think they're necessarily decisions being made, but they are a factor. I don't think any person working on an OB-GYN ward makes a decision like in their head based on money or liability or anything. I think it's always a complex mix and they absolutely want the best outcome for the mother. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's just such the language is so hard. 

Beth [00:17:16] Maybe the thing I'm looking for is like the inertia of all of that, like the momentum around it, I think is influenced by a lot of things other than care. And I also feel like, where is the line between a primary care physician who tells you that diet and exercise are extraordinarily important in that foyer of wellness, which is basically just telling you what you put in your body and how you move it matter a whole lot. I think that in some ways there are language issues here. 

Sarah [00:17:44] Oh, so many. 

Beth [00:17:45] And so all of that is tough. I was exposed to the Dr. Sears delay the vaccine schedule, the it's too much for a baby's body to handle. You know, what we typically do at birth is too much for a baby's body to handle. I remember all of that. I remember just not finding it very persuasive and talking with Chad and feeling like, yes, this seems like a lot, but also look at what it has done in the world to do all of this. Let's just do it. And so we just did it. So with my kids, I have never deviated from sort of standard medical practice. I have more just been reluctant to get an antibiotic for any little thing that was going on with them. That's the one thing I've worried about the most with my kids. I have fully internalized that sense that we overuse antibiotics to the point that communicative diseases are going to become even more prevalent and serious. And we got to be careful about that. And how much of that, as applied to my children, is real versus imagined. I have no idea. I can't really untangle it, but I have only taken them to the doctor when they are very, very sick, and we had a sense that something could be prescribed to help them. 

Sarah [00:19:03] Yeah, you can see how the Dr. Sears sort of outlook trains you to a certain perspective. You know, he does a good job of saying like, there's no risk at this age of this particular disease. So why would you get the vaccine, which on certain level makes a lot of sense, right? Yeah. Why is my child getting a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease at birth? They're not going to be having sex anytime soon. But I think what that trains you to do is think through this very individualized mindset, which we're going to get into later, which I think is so central to this. Well, yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense individualized. But if you think about it from a community health and that they're they're capturing everybody at this moment where almost everybody's in the health care system, it makes a lot more sense. And I think that's what I regret looking back is like that it was this very especially when it came to my kids, like very individualized perspective. Whereas I think the individualized perspective with antibiotics is like, get the antibiotics. So it's kind of interesting that the wellness industry is like, or this sort of wellness narrative, it's kind of in conflict and conflict, because, you know, the community-oriented thing is delay of antibiotics, so we don't have resistant strains, whereas the individual has things is like try it, it's not going to hurt, although, you know, they're going to argue it is going to mess up your gut, which I don't think it's necessarily false. You know? 

[00:20:19] My pediatrician at the time again was like he was a good mix of, but he was probably the perfect person for me at that point because he was pretty hands-off with antibiotics. Listen, my middle son had a febrile seizure and he was like, If he seems OK, you don't have to bring him in. That's what the body's supposed to do when it spikes a fever so quickly. It was a very short one. It was very minor. But like, he talked me through it and I trusted him and it was fine. But then with my last son, Felix, when he had a prenatal stroke, I look back and I have major regrets about how hands-off we were in the beginning with that. Big regrets. You know, it was that narrative that had trained me. You know, sort of hands-off is always best and the body knows what it's doing, and I had a distrust of the medical community still at that point, you know, even though I had tons of friends who had who were doctors, not a friend who was a vascular surgeon, and I was sweating, getting Felix in the MRI and putting him under anesthesia. He was like, What are you talking about, crazy lady? Go get the freakin MRI. You don't know what kind of stroke he had. You need that information. And I wish I'd been. I think that that was a disservice. I wish that. I think that narrative led me wrong when there was a real issue, and I regret that. And so I think that's what's so hard. It's like, you know, in the moment, you don't know where, well, it's going to work out fine and it's going to serve you or where you're going to encounter something where that narrative is not going to serve you well at all. 

Beth [00:21:45] The place where I would go back and change things is probably around breastfeeding. With Jane, natural birth did lead me hardcore into breastfeeding and only breastfeeding and breastfeeding, no matter what, and making sure that I was producing enough milk no matter what. And, you know, I went back to work after my very generous maternity leave. I took 12 weeks with Jane. I went back to work and I would pump pretty much all day because I had such supply issues. So I was fortunate enough. I was a young associate at a law firm. I had a door that they installed a lock on for me, so I was able to sit at my desk and work and pump and pump and pump. And if I could go back in time, I would just like hug that younger version of myself and say, nobody is served by what you're doing right now. It would not hurt at all to supplement your breastmilk with formula. Stop doing this to yourself. This is too much. You're exhausted, you're cranky. Like, no one is served by this punishing approach that you're taking to this because you've convinced yourself that it's the only way. That's the point where I can see how damaging it becomes to decide as part of your sort of wellness orientation that you are singularly responsible for everything. 

Sarah [00:23:17] Mm hmm. 

Beth [00:23:18] And I think this happens with breastfeeding, especially because you are the only person who can do it, you feel singularly responsible for doing it when there are tons of societal factors in how successfully you can do it, how easily you can do it, whether you can do it at all or not. And there was a lot of unnecessary pressure around that for me. Again, I don't mean to be whining about it. I'm just kind of pointing to that as like the first spot where I think this led me wrong. 

Sarah [00:23:46] Yeah, yeah. I think there is multiple moments where you feel like you got to get it right. I mean, that the enneagram 1 in me anyway. It's just definitely susceptible, I think to a lot of these, like, there is a right way to do it. There is a way to really, you know, maximize the good to really this sort of idea that like you have the secret information, you know the right way to do it and you're going to do it well. I think I definitely fell prey to. 

Beth [00:24:14] And I think if I'm being really honest that there was some kind of penance going on for me in pumping that milk like that kept me a real mom. Even though I was dropping Jane off very early at the babysitter and picking her up in the evening and was distracted by my job and stressed out and frustrated when she spit up on my suit jacket or whatever. I think that there was kind of a psychological, I deserve how hard this is because of the choices that I'm making about my career. That was a hard time. 

Sarah [00:24:46] Well, and I think on the opposite end, I wasn't working. And so I thought, Well, this is my job, so I better do it the best. 

Beth [00:24:51] I can see that too. 

Sarah [00:24:53] Yeah, this is all I'm doing all the time, so I might as well, you know, pour everything into it and wash the diapers and do the things and have him have this like perfect baby schedule. So he's just knocking all the milestones out of the park. Yeah, it hits you both ways. 

Beth [00:25:08] And so this is where our build back better friends are saying because we need more paid leave and we need more generous policies that support families through these times and. And I hear you! 

Sarah [00:25:18] They're right. 

Beth [00:25:18] It's hard to like. It's hard to separate any one piece of how you have internalized these messages out from everything else. 

Sarah [00:25:28] Well, let's try to do that in the next segment. Let's try to like not beyond our own personal journeys. Let's pull apart some of the threads about how this started and some of the problems within the wellness industry before we even get into conspiracy theories and the anti-vax movement. That's up next. 



Sarah [00:25:59] So let's do a quick history, I thought this was really fascinating about just the word wellness. The Oxford English Dictionary recognized the word wellness in 1654. So it's been around for a while. Many, many religious practices, both eastern and western, speak to a desire to live well. I was listening to a podcast where they talked about Christianity is actually only one of the few religions that doesn't have the cleansing. So many like intense cleansing rituals, but you can get you can see where you start that thread of like cleansing, wellness, impurities. 

Beth [00:26:28] But we did get a lot of my body is a temple. Kind of. Oh yeah. 

Sarah [00:26:32] Yeah. So many aspects of the wellness world that we consider mainstream are really new. Even though the word's been around a while, you really start to see changes in the 60s and 70s. There's this hilarious 1979 Dan Rather report for 60 Minutes. He talks to people like in a wellness center. I think they're just doing yoga, and he's like asking if they're in a quote and he has this. He's like, 

Sarah [00:26:55] [00:26:55]Wellness. There's a word you don't hear very much. [1.5s]

Sarah [00:26:58] This is my favorite one. There is a New York magazine cover, and it was called The Physical Elite. "They run, they work out. They think they're better than us. And this quote, these people are almost a race apart. Their behavior doesn't seem to conform to the urges that govern the rest of us. They stop smoking and drinking without a hitch or pain are plaint. They become vegetarian and give up all that dangerous dairy stuff. Not because they believe it's right, but because they prefer it that way. Their direction comes from within. They will get up and walk out of theaters, not because the play is bad, but because they find the air unbearable." It's amazing. I love every word of that. 

Beth [00:27:35] I love that too. I was reading an article that was interviewing Louis Grossman, who wrote a book about the history of medical freedom movements in the United States, and he talked about how the 70s were a really intense time around wellness for both left-leaning and right-leaning people. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense for all the reasons we've talked about the 70s as a period of distrust in institutions before. You had Watergate, you had economic crisis, you had inflation. You had things like the Three Mile Island. 

Sarah [00:28:04] A Growing environmental movement. Yeah. 

Beth [00:28:06] Yeah. A growing environmental movement, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident it just felt like and there was like a terrible rollout of a swine flu vaccine. So you just had this collision of forces that made people think. It seems like the people who are supposed to be the adults in charge don't know what they're doing. 

Sarah [00:28:23] Well and put a pin in that for the next episode. This is also in the 80s when you get to the vaccine courts, where people get vaccine injuries and you start to have more coverage. I mean, not to mention, you have Thalidomide In the, you know, some just. Oh and the IUD, the one that was so wretched they had so many lawsuits around. I mean, some really, really problematic pharmaceuticals and medical interventions that caused people a lot of harm, just a lot of harm. And it was all over the news. It was in the media everywhere. So I think as you look back on that confluence of events and history, you know, the growth of this wellness movement makes a lot of sense. 

[00:29:00] OK, so what? Wellness is one word that encompasses so many things. So what are we talking about? I mean, you have nutrition, exercise, supplements, sleep, skincare, spas, growing meditation movement, not to mention CBDs, alternative medicines, holistic healing, energy work. I mean, it is a huge, huge space that we're talking about when you use this one simple word wellness. 

Beth [00:29:30] And I just want to again, in the interest of full disclosure, we probably could have done three hours on our personal wellness journeys. Every single thing that you just listed, I am into to some level. I take supplements. I eat mostly vegan. I meditate, I do yoga, I teach yoga, I'm into skincare, I'm into spas. I take CBD to help me sleep like the whole gamut. I'm in that foyer fully. 

Sarah [00:29:56] Yeah, I don't. I don't think the foyer is is. Do you think you need to be further in the house? 

Beth [00:30:00] Maybe I'm in the first floor? I've thought about this a lot. It might be, but I really like gone into this metaphor in my mind. It might be the whole first floor. 

Sarah [00:30:05] I think your father in than the foyer or you're a trained yoga teacher. You're definitely past the foyer. 

Beth [00:30:09] I mean, I love acupuncture. Like I'm. I think that there is a lot here that has been very helpful to me. 

Sarah [00:30:15] I love it. And listen, it's a big industry $4 trillion globally. Listen, yoga clothing alone is $70 billion. And make no mistake, we've advertised a lot of these things on this show, from yoga clothing to CBD to supplements. You know, like there have been aspects of the wellness industry present in the advertising of the show as well. You can't. We can't skip over that part. 

Beth [00:30:39] Absolutely. There are lots of celebrities who have invested heavily in this industry, most famously, and I feel kind of bad. I feel like she gets beaten up in every single article about this. She's fine, though. I know she's fine, but Gwyneth Paltrow is very tied up in this space. 

Sarah [00:30:56] Well, this is the irony that I had not put together until we were doing all this research, and now I don't feel as bad for the fact that she gets beat up as much as she does, which is I forgot she was in Shallow Hal. Just the worst, most offensive film of all damn time. I mean, maybe not of all time, but oh, it's so bad. And especially as we're going to get into that wellness is so often coded for thinness and whiteness and beauty, especially the thin and white part. You see where you get all these celebrities investing in this space from like Alicia Silverstone to Jessica Alba to Russell Brand. And listen, listen, let me just let me just say this right now. I must mention this in the personal journey was a little too vulnerable. I got trained on all a lot of this at Oprah's feet. Make no mistake, I watched that show every day for 20 years at four o'clock, and we marched lockstep through every single part of this industry we mentioned. Well, you know, diet, not nutrition, diet, exercise. Definitely. Celebrity-endorsed wellness. She gave us Dr. Oz, like all these aspects, not to mention, just I'll remember your spirit. Do you remember the Remember Your Spirit moment, like Oprah was the wellness pioneer in so many ways, sort of mainstreaming a lot of these concepts, without a doubt. 

Beth [00:32:22] I got a more recent confession for you. I checked out Alicia Silverstone's book on being plant-based from the library like a month ago, and I'm reading along and I'm thinking a lot of this makes sense to me. Then we get to her absolute passion that dairy is the worst. And listen, I'm really sad about this, but dairy is the worst for me. I've tested it this year. I eliminated dairy from my diet. I truly wanted to be like, I tried y'all, didn't make a difference. I'm going back to the things that I love, and I'm a kid who grew up on a dairy farm. It feels like personally offensive to me that I can't eat dairy, but I can't. But anyway, I'm reading her description of it, and it is so filled with ridicule and shame. And again, that sense that, like every person, is fully responsible for everything that has ever been put on a table in front of them. And I just I finally was like, I'm out, Alicia, like, I get it. Namaste, but I, I'm out. This does not work for me. 

Sarah [00:33:27] Well, so let's talk about these because I think all these issues, I really want to make sure we, you know, work through a lot of the huge issues with this industry before we move into the next episode because I think they're important and I think a lot of them, what they boil down to is control. So we're gonna get to that. So first and foremost, it is often code for thinness. Wellness is code for thinness. We don't use the word diet anymore. They did for decades. We don't use the word diet anymore. Now we say clean eating, right? We say all kinds of other things. I love this quote. It says, Wellness diets are enticing because they reconfigure a form of self-loathing, the desire to diminish oneself as a form of self-love. And so often, you know, we just think of thinness as health. We equate the two. 

Beth [00:34:12] And wellness as thinness has very strong corporate backing. So this is another place where I am implicated. I was an H.R. executive looking at insurance plans and insurance costs, and corporate wellness was like the trend when I was in that seat. And a lot of what that meant was let's have a biggest loser challenge. Let's give people access to this weight loss program. And truly, the thing supported the most by data that I learned in that period is that that the most effective, non exploitive corporate wellness initiative is just to make sure everybody connects with a primary care doctor annually. 

Sarah [00:34:58] Yep. 

Beth [00:34:59] That is the thing that that you need to do. It is best for the individual and it is best for the organization in terms of cost. That is the where the Corporate Wellness Initiative needs to begin and end, in my opinion. But there is a strong workplace push for everyone to be thin and for everyone to exercise as a part of their workday to the point of bringing that equipment into the workplace. And I think that's really toxic. 

Sarah [00:35:24] Yeah, I mean, the toxicity of the link between the two and you just can't avoid it and you just don't, you know, especially if women of our age, just the images we grew up around, the messaging we grew up around, even though I had a mother who did a really good job of teaching me positive body image, even though I knew my whole childhood, she was trying to lose weight. I knew that. And my parents did some like really crazy diets when I was growing up and lost a truly dramatic amount of weight, but I still understood like she did a good job of like it wasn't from self-loathing. It was just like she wanted to lose the weight, whether she needed to or not. Look, I don't. I didn't see her labs then. I haven't seen them now. But like, you know, I just think she did a good job of saying, This isn't about self-loathing and. The message I received from her was, just take care of yourself now. Don't put it off. I think that's the narrative I got from her. Like, I put this off. Don't put this off. Always make this a priority for yourself. And I'm really thankful for that, because if it's she'd been on top of the messages I was getting, which I definitely got, which is thin is the way to be. I think that would have been a lot harder. 

Beth [00:36:35] And we've come such a long way since we were kids. If I could just reach out and hug the marketing folks at like Universal Standard, at Made Well, at Somersault like the images that come in junk mail at my house are so much better. 

Sarah [00:36:52] Like a different universe. 

Beth [00:36:53] It's it was unimaginable to me that this is where we are. I'm so, so grateful to people doing that work, and I feel so much more confident about how my girls are going to view their bodies because of it. 

Sarah [00:37:04] And that's not to say we fixed it because we haven't. 

Beth [00:37:06] We have not. 

Sarah [00:37:07] And I think it's true that like we've just coded the language and it's still about you need to as a woman, you need to control your body. Yeah, you need to control your body. And we might call it clean eating and we might call it, you know, whatever. And I've done some of that. I've definitely done the whole thirty at points in my life. I'm still I don't regret it. It taught me some very valuable lessons, mainly that I should not eat cereal for breakfast because it makes me so tired by 10 a.m. But like, I think that that it's just you can't. You can't extract that completely. It's just such it's everywhere and it's still coded, and it's still, you know, even though I still find myself falling for those messages, especially like cleanses. There's something as an enneagram 1, I like beginnings and ends, even though I've never done one and don't ever plan to do one. I still read them. I'm like, Oh, maybe even though there's like no science behind cleanses. I'm like, every time they're kind of appealing to me, there's something about that, like the hard beginning the heart in you're in control. You're like, You're not, you're getting rid of the bad stuff to this great goal you're trying to meet. Like, it totally makes sense to me. It totally makes sense to me why it's so appealing. 

Beth [00:38:22] Wellness has also a real strain of whiteness involved that we cannot ignore. 

Sarah [00:38:29] What's a bigger word for? Strain looks like bigger than strain. Whatever that is, that's what it is in wellness. 

Beth [00:38:36] I think that here is a place where yoga in the United States should be indicted. And again, I'm part of that. I've done the teacher training I taught at a yoga studio for quite some time. I have no regrets about either of those things. They made my life better, unquestionably. And. Part of the reason I wanted to teach in a yoga studio is because I think it's important for not all yoga practitioners and teachers to be willowy, you know, wealthy white women, and that's what I say to people all the time. I'm really sorry that yoga has been kind of appropriated by thin, wealthy white women in a way that completely rips the physical practice from the roots of the practice and from everything that you are supposed to understand about yoga and its philosophy of life, that it has become a lot of like gross marketing and commoditization of like sacred symbols and words from from India. And it's just it's been bad. It's just been bad all around. And I've been part of some of that badness and I'm constantly trying to learn and revise and do better in this space. 

Sarah [00:39:53] You know, because wellness is so woven with so many parts of our culture woven into so many parts of our culture, it's not surprising that racism is a part of it at all. And I think in particular, you know. It's because it's so tied up in those three things you listed, which is just status like it's just wrapped up in status and status in our country means, so many ways, white and thin and wealthy and necessarily female, but white and thin and wealthy, right? And I think that that, you know, good health being in good health has always been a luxury. I mean, I even think about home birth and my concerns about home birth and now knowing what I know about women of color in their maternity statistics and their maternal health. You know, it's just it's heartbreaking. And I think it's always been something that is seen as something to strive for. Like to prove that you're worthy of that status. I was reading an article and there's a really great quote about how it used to be like a socioeconomic group was how you proved your status. And now it's like this. It's almost like self-actualization. And we've done that in so many areas, right? We've done that in parenting. It's not enough to just keep your kids alive, right? Like they have to be like full, like, that's how you fully self-actualize yourself and them. We've done that in marriage. Like marriage is not just about companionship or even romantic love. Now it's like you are each other's path to self-actualization. And this sort of evolution is the goal. And that's how you prove really your your status and your standing within our society. And I think this wellness world is at the center of a lot of this. 

Beth [00:41:39] And I think that's where the connectedness with religion comes in because a lot of those status symbols are recycled for us as indicators of moral fortitude and the sort of bits and pieces that we pick off of yoga and eastern medicine have this religious-light connotation that kind of gets built out in ways that create more products we need to buy, or retreats we need to go on, or books we need to read, or conferences that we need to attend, and it takes on a real religious overtone. And Christianity has been really, really bad about mixing wellness with church, as put on display very poignantly by the recent documentary about the way down. You know where you had people meeting in churches to talk about weight loss as a godly pursuit. 

Sarah [00:42:41] Well, there's just such a thread of purity, right? Purity and pure ness and just cleanliness. Even when you call it clean eating like the moral weight, the moral value ascribed to all this. Not just that I have knowledge you don't have, but that like I'm I have the strong enough willpower to apply it where you don't. I have the self-control to do these things that you won't. There's even some of that. Like, even though I think Peloton does a really good job of pushing against some of these more harmful threads of wellness, they even will say that. Just by showing up today, you've done something most people will never do in their lives. Like they use that language a lot that like. And it's really hard because where is the line between like motivating people and encouraging people and tiptoeing into you are better because of this, you are better than other people because of this. 

Beth [00:43:35] I think that's the hardest thing about all of this. I find a little bit of truth and value in almost everything wellness has to offer. There's just a place where it gets dark and it goes too far, and it's really hard to keep it in that range. I was really interested in that Louis Grossman piece that I was talking about, The History of Medical Freedom not only includes sort of the anti-vax or anti compulsion thread that we'll talk more about on Friday, but much more of no, let me be treated with this thing that the FDA hasn't approved. Let me try the experimental drug or let me try the course of treatment that you all have decided has no benefit. The government shouldn't get to regulate what I experiment with in my own body, especially if I'm really, really sick. There's an interesting merger of kind of left and right in the 1980s around this, where you had Pat Buchanan on air with an AIDS activist talking about experimental treatments for AIDS and the AIDS activists are saying, Let us try these things. And Pat Buchanan is saying, I fully agree with you because that medical freedom as religious right has been around for as long as we've had a country and before. 

Sarah [00:44:51] Well, and I think it's medical freedom as the freedom to consume, right? This consumption, and I don't think it's an accident that all of this is happening as sort of the decline of religious institutions. And so I'm going to put my the moral weight of my personal philosophy into this like capitalist consumption model that consumption, control over my consumption, my individual choices, again as an answer to this distrust in the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. And I think in particularly with the internet, this sort of democratization, everybody can get the answers. Everybody can do their own research right, which is not really true. No amount of Google is going to get you to a medical degree. OK, like and there's a reason for that, right? 

[00:45:37] This idea that we sort of can be all be our own doctor or even the mothering community like nobody knows your child better than you do. Even though some of this is true, there's a long history of people understanding their own bodies or advocating for a family member and like and pushing up against these institutions where they did know better. They did have insight that was important. I remember watching Lorenzo's Oil, you know what I'm saying? Like, I just think that all of this is so intricately connected that it's why this is such a big industry. It's why this is such a powerful movement. It's why it's touched almost every single one of our lives. Because these this desire to take control of your own body, to manage your own health and the reality that some of these institutions, because they are composed of human beings, have made mistakes, have violated people's trust, especially people of color. Especially women, when it comes to pain management and it comes to, you know, just an absence of research on our hormonal systems or how medication acts on us as opposed to men, like all of that is true. It's all well-founded. 

Beth [00:46:45] I think that's right. Everybody has a little bit of a point here. I try to keep zooming out for myself and realizing one, it's a miracle that we know anything about the human body at all. It's a miracle. And what science and medicine have been able to achieve, even in the course of my lifetime is remarkable, and I'm so grateful for it. And also, just like you said, these institutions have constraints, and those constraints show up in the form of prejudices. They show up in the form of resources, just prioritization. That's a lot of the issue with women's health. It just hasn't been prioritized the way that other issues have. And so we are playing catch up in a lot of areas where you'd think we would have really good information and understanding based on the technology and research available to us. 

Sarah [00:47:33] Well, that's what bugs me. Is that. And that was what bugged me when I was having my kids is that the narrative I got from the medical community is we have complete knowledge and you should trust us. I think it's gotten better. I don't think that narrative is as strong as it used to be, but it's not true. You don't have complete knowledge. Even with a medical degree, even as a researcher, even as an epidemiologist in the middle of a pandemic, the best ones say, we don't have complete knowledge. There's so much we don't know. What I see now is that the wellness industry and so many influencers just adopted that narrative. Now they pretend they have complete knowledge. Well, just because we ask questions and or the opposite, right? Or because they acknowledge that they don't have complete knowledge, that means that they should have complete trust. Well, that's not true, either. Just because you're a person who says, Oh, I ask questions or I know like that there are pieces of this information we don't have that there's some unknown here. That means you should completely trust me. Well, that doesn't make any sense either. You just flip the coin like you're just using, you're just flipping the narrative to your own benefit instead of acknowledging that there is something fundamentally wrong with that narrative. 

Beth [00:48:41] I think that's exactly where I landed as I was thinking about my personal journey with wellness that I don't like anything that asked me to go all in. I don't like it in my religion. I don't like it in my politics, and I don't like it around medicine or alternatives to medicine and anything that says you got to go all in. This is the way. This is the only way. Everything besides this way is completely wrong and valueless. No, I'm out at that point. That does not work for me. 

Sarah [00:49:06] I think as I was looking back over the many, many problems with the wellness industry or the sort of cultural narrative surrounding wellness is, you know, it's the thing motivating so many things. It's the thing motivating the decisions we make inside the medical community, it's that's the thing motivating so many of so much of the health care industry. It's the thing motivating so much of our sort of capitalistic structure, marketing, advertising, which is we're just afraid to die. We're just afraid to die, we don't want to die, we want to live long, healthy lives as much as was within our control. And the anecdote to this going all-in is just acknowledging we are going to die. The people we love are going to die. Sometimes they're going to be in tragic, terrible ways. Sometimes it's going to be a sickness we have no control over. Sometimes it's going to be from a health problem that maybe is a result of bad decisions like that's just the reality of the human existence and anybody telling you they have an easy way out of that is lying to you. You know, I have a lot more trust for people that acknowledge like one decision is not going to make or break you or if it is, you probably couldn't have backed out of that road to begin with, right? You know, just the precarity of this. This thing that we are doing here together on planet Earth is not something we can consume our way out of. No amount of clean eating or yoga or pharmaceuticals or medical interventions are going to get us out of that ultimate reality. 

Beth [00:50:45] And there are ways that we can have greater longevity or less suffering that are not individualized. You can do every single thing that you think will lead to a longer, happier life for yourself. And you still live in the world with the rest of us where there are toxins in the air and there are, you know, there's lead in our pipes and all kinds of environmental factors that we don't invest in enough because we are chasing these individual solutions to better health. And there are cancers and there are pathogens and there are pandemics. 

Sarah [00:51:26] Or there are people you're bumping up against with mental health challenges that have been, you know, oppressed and treated terribly by these systems. You have to live among those people, too. 

Beth [00:51:35] Right. And so when I am most painfully honest about my attempts to take greater control over my own health, it leads me to recognize that doing that is only serving me and the world to the extent that it serves me and the world. That if I am prioritizing all of these good things for myself at the expense of other people, then that's not right because I am still part of them and they are still part of me. So I've got to find that balance between the individual and the collective, even in my approach to my own body. That sucks. That's really unsatisfying. You know, that is not the kind of American spirit that I have been raised to have. But I think that it's the truth and an important one for me to continue to grapple with as we have these conversations. 

Sarah [00:52:26] Yeah, I think about the line in Anne Helen Petersen's piece from several month ago months ago, where she said sometimes the only way to make it better for ourselves is to make it better for everybody. I think the really sneaky part of the people we're going to get into in the next episode. This is probably a good transition is often that's the promise, right? We're making it better for everybody. We are pushing against the status quo in a way that will set us all free. So let's put a pin in that and we will pick that up next episode with our conversations of the darker sides of the wellness industry, the pipeline, the QAnon and conspiracy theories and the anti-vax movement. 




Beth [00:53:15] Sarah, what's on your mind outside of politics? 

Sarah [00:53:17] OK, Beth. We were tasked with a very difficult homework of listening to Adele's brilliant new album 30 and Taylor Swift's not new but Taylor's version of Red. What do you think so far? 

Beth [00:53:34] I just like both of these women as individuals and artists so much. The video going around of Adele at her concert where they surprised her with her teacher. 

Sarah [00:53:44] Teacher. 

Beth [00:53:44] Can't get enough of that. I love that Taylor got her music back and is doing her big thing with it. I also, honestly, I listened to Adele's album once. I probably don't need to hear it again. 

Sarah [00:53:55] Oh. 

Beth [00:53:56] I know, I know, and I feel terrible saying that. I love her. I think she's so gifted. It's just not connecting with me right now. I like Easy on Me, the single a lot. I don't know. I just listen to both of these realizing that I think this is why I like Brandi Carlile's music and the Highwomen so much right now, because I'm just in a different period of life. My heart has not been broken romantically and a very, very long time. My day to day relationship experiences are we have an argument in the morning where we slightly annoy each other and we're over it by lunchtime, I mean, it's just it's not where I am. It's not music that I want to go back to over and over again. I think it's great. I'm thrilled for them. I feel like I'm letting everyone down at this take like I'm supposed to be gushing about these albums. It's just not where I am today. 

Sarah [00:54:46] But you loved Olivia's Sour. That's nothing but a breakup CD. 

Beth [00:54:50] And you know what? I think about that. I think that I loved Olivia's Sour because one, it was totally new to me, and nothing here is brand new. I mean, Adele's music is new, but it's still Adele. I think it was totally new, and I think it kind of put me back in that teenage place. I wasn't trying to connect with Sour as a 40 year old. The way that I'm trying to connect, I guess, with 30 as a 40 year old and I don't know, it's just a little bit off for me right now. I think it's great. I think it's well done. Go listen to it. Enjoy it. I hope they make so much money and are so happy and successful. I don't know. It's just not the music that I'm going to roll around. I'm not going to drive to target singing along. That's what I'm saying. 

Sarah [00:55:28] Well, you know, I've been saying about Taylor Swift for a long time. I was just ready for her to grow up like I loved the first album. I played the heck out of it and not first. So I guess I was really technically her second album in law school, and I was like, OK, I'm tired of think about your boyfriends. Let's move on here. And I'm glad she's grown up mature. Folklore is phenomenal. 

Beth [00:55:45] Oh, yeah, I love Folklore. 

Sarah [00:55:46] But I love going back and revisiting Red. I was like super into this album when it came out, and some of the songs like I don't love. But listen, I remember when the whole Jake Gyllenhaal thing was going down and you're like, Is she OK? That she's still so, so mad about this? And I thought a lot about that. Let me tell you something like I am 40 years old, happily married for almost 20 years, and I could tomorrow, if given the opportunity, write a rage-soaked take down of my first love who cheated on me with a sorority sister. Perform it on Jimmy Fallon and not feel an ounce of regret tomorrow. Happily, let's do it. So there's a part of me that, like just the breakup albums I'll never tire of because my heart was broken so hard, so hard, and I can tap that very easily. I told my 12-year-old, I'm like, Look, it's worth it. Just so these albums remain relevant to you for your whole life, your whole life. And also, there's some, listen, objective evidence listening to Tyler's version in the car. We are never, ever getting back together comes on. We rock out to it. Felix is in the car along with me in the backseat and he goes, That's a really good song. I'm like, I know. Right? It's really doesn't have any experience with this. It's just a bop. Like, it's just so good. And I'm like, Man, is so, so good. Also, like, the leaves are perfect right now if she planned this, but like walk around my neighborhood with the leaves fall into the ten minute version of All’s Well is a is a vibe, and I'm here for it. I love it. Love it. I'm so happy for her. I want her to make all the money on these new masters because they screwed her and I just love it. I love Taylor. I think that she is. I don't know if she's an enneagram one, but she has that very much like justice-driven. I don't care about anything else vibe, and I'm here for it. 

[00:57:32] I love Adele's album. Felix, and I've also been listening to that on repeat. I think it is so brilliant. I'm just really glad that she is leaning all the way into like her particular musical style because she does it so well. Like, you know, Kacey Musgraves also came out with a breakup album, and I don't love her new stuff. Pageant material is one of my favorite albums of all time, and she's really moved along from that musical taste. I'm not mad at her, like she absolutely has every right and ability to, like, evolve her musical styles and tastes. But like, I'm sort of so glad Adele is not or like Brandi Carlile is not like, I don't want, you know, a different style from them. I love their style. So I think it's beautiful. I think her vocals are just getting better and better. I don't absolutely love every song on that album, but I'm just loving it. I'm loving it so much because I think she's such a phenomenal artist. 

Beth [00:58:24] I feel the same. She's a phenomenal artist, and I'm not mad at her at all. Adele has done enough for me. If Adele never does anything else that I like, she has done enough for me. I just this one just doesn't connect with me. That's all. 

Sarah [00:58:36] Well, we hope you are out there enjoying the sad girl autumn. Whether, you know, it's perfectly connecting with you or not. One trip through both albums is definitely worth it. No matter what I can, I can say that without a doubt. We hope you've enjoyed part one of our conversation on Wellness. We'll pick this up on the next episode. Hope everybody has the best Thanksgiving available to them and until Friday, keep it nuanced, y'all. 

Beth [00:59:08] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Alise Napp is our managing director. 

Sarah [00:59:14] Megan Hart and Maggie Penton are our community engagement managers. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music. 

Beth [00:59:20] Our show is listener supported. Special thanks to our executive producers 

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:59:24] Martha Bronitsky, Linda Daniel, Ali Edwards, Janice Elliot, Sarah Greenup, Julie Haller, Helen Handley, Tiffany Hassler, Emily Holladay, Katie Johnson, Katina Zuganelis Kasling, Barry Kaufman, Molly Kohrs.

The Kriebs, Laurie LaDow, Lilly McClure, David McWilliams, Jared Minson, Emily Neesley, Danny Ozment, The Pentons, Tawni Peterson, Tracy Puthoff, Sarah Ralph, Jeremy Sequoia, Katy Stigers, Karin True, Onica Ulveling, Nick and Alysa Vilelli, Amy Whited.

Beth [01:00:03] Melinda Johnston, Ashley Thompson, Michelle Wood, Joshua Allen, Morgan McHugh, Nichole Berklas, Paula Bremer, and Tim Miller. 

Sarah [01:00:13] Listen, it's all you can do, you can, you know. 

Beth [01:00:15] You can only be who you are. 

Sarah [01:00:16] I'm sorry, I'm gonna say that again, I'm gonna pick that up again. Doesn't connect with me. 

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