What People are Saying About This
Deborah Lupton
Wellness cultures and practices are political. Wellness is a source of income and influence, but also a way of making people feel that it is their fault that they don't feel healthy or contented. After you read this wonderful book, you will never see the wellness-industrial-complex the same way again.
Norah A. MacKendrick
Why Wellness Sells is an engaging, beautifully written, and original exploration of contemporary wellness culture. Without snark or jargon, Derkatch offers a fresh take on the language and marketing of wellness. This book is a treat.
John Lynch
Colleen Derkatch sidesteps mere debunking of wellness culture to examine its appeal for some as a solution to the ills of contemporary life. She illuminates the discursive constraints of wellness culture and challenges readers to move past disparaging wellness's adherents to understand the collective needs wellness has co-opted.
Carl Elliott
Like the devil himself, the wellness industry approaches us with a stylish outfit, a winning smile and the false promise of a life without suffering. Not only does Colleen Derkatch see the scam of wellness for what it is, she takes it apart and shows us exactly how it works. Why Wellness Sells is a deft, incisive analysis of a modern scourge.
Jordynn Jack
In this lively, accessible book, Colleen Derkatch explains the underlying cultural and rhetorical logics that make "wellness" marketable. Derkatch expertly analyzes everything from Instagram posts to interview data, showing readers how appeals to restoration and enhancement reflect consumers' ways of navigating the systemic pressures of twenty-first century life.
Jenell Johnson
I loved this book. Not only is Why Wellness Sells a beautifully written, original, and rigorous piece of scholarship that expands our scholarly understanding of health, illness, and wellness—and, importantly, their intersections—but it's also eminently readable, clearly and compellingly argued, and its subject matter couldn't be timelier. It's one of the best academic books I've read in a long time.
From the Publisher
Like the devil himself, the wellness industry approaches us with a stylish outfit, a winning smile and the false promise of a life without suffering. Not only does Colleen Derkatch see the scam of wellness for what it is, she takes it apart and shows us exactly how it works. Why Wellness Sells is a deft, incisive analysis of a modern scourge.
—Carl Elliott, author of Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream and White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine.
Wellness cultures and practices are political. Wellness is a source of income and influence, but also a way of making people feel that it is their fault that they don't feel healthy or contented. After you read this wonderful book, you will never see the wellness-industrial-complex the same way again.
—Deborah Lupton, University of New South Wales
In this lively, accessible book, Colleen Derkatch explains the underlying cultural and rhetorical logics that make "wellness" marketable. Derkatch expertly analyzes everything from Instagram posts to interview data, showing readers how appeals to restoration and enhancement reflect consumers' ways of navigating the systemic pressures of twenty-first century life.
—Jordynn Jack, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, author of Autism and Gender and Raveling the Brain
I loved this book. Not only is Why Wellness Sells a beautifully written, original, and rigorous piece of scholarship that expands our scholarly understanding of health, illness, and wellness—and, importantly, their intersections—but it's also eminently readable, clearly and compellingly argued, and its subject matter couldn't be timelier. It's one of the best academic books I've read in a long time.
—Jenell Johnson, University of Wisconsin–Madison, author of American Lobotomy: A Rhetorical History
Why Wellness Sells is an engaging, beautifully written, and original exploration of contemporary wellness culture. Without snark or jargon, Derkatch offers a fresh take on the language and marketing of wellness. This book is a treat.
—Norah A. MacKendrick, Rutgers University, author of Better Safe Than Sorry: How Consumers Navigate Exposure to Everyday Toxics
Colleen Derkatch sidesteps mere debunking of wellness culture to examine its appeal for some as a solution to the ills of contemporary life. She illuminates the discursive constraints of wellness culture and challenges readers to move past disparaging wellness's adherents to understand the collective needs wellness has co-opted.
—John Lynch, University of Cincinnati and author of The Origins of Bioethics: Remembering When Medicine Went Wrong
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