You can learn a lot about a person in the grocery store, which is exactly why the grocery store feels like a courtroom these days.
The evidence sits in the cart. A bag of baby spinach. A jar of peanut butter with a label that looks like it was designed by a monastery. A frozen pizza you pretend is “for emergencies” like you live in a bunker. Everyone has had the same intrusive thought at least once, about themselves or someone else. I’m doing it right. They’re not. You don’t even have to say it out loud. It’s already embedded in our culture.
There’s a name for this. Sociologist Robert Crawford calls this dynamic “healthism,” and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Health becomes a performance of discipline, where the “right” choices signal virtue and anything else is a failure of will. In a culture obsessed with self-control, healthism turns bodies into public reports and lets people judge without admitting that’s what they’re doing.
Wellness has turned into a status language because it pays. The Global Wellness Institute says the global wellness economy hit $6.3 trillion in 2023 and kept growing afterward. In fact, it’s forecasted to reach $9 trillion by 2028. When there’s that much money in the room, “health” is no longer a personal goal; it becomes a brand identity. You aren’t just eating yogurt. You’re broadcasting membership to the exclusive “I’m healthy, you’re not” club.
Food gets especially convoluted because we moralize it. Research has found that moralizing food is very widespread, including in implicit associations that link certain foods with “sin” and “virtue.” That’s how you end up with people describing lunch like it’s a confession at church. “I was bad this weekend.” “I’m being good today.” Nobody talks about a meeting like that.
The mental health issues that follow are predictable. When “healthy” equals “worthy,” people start living in fear of being seen as the wrong kind of person. Some slide into rigid rules that shrink their social lives. The National Eating Disorders Association describes orthorexia as an obsession with “healthful” eating that can lead to malnutrition and impaired psychosocial functioning, and it notes that orthorexia still isn’t an official DSM-5 diagnosis.
Nutrition and exercise are cornerstones of life. They’re no doubt important. But the associations around them can get ugly fast. If your “wellness” makes you feel superior, anxious, or ashamed, that’s not health. That’s social climbing with a side of chia seeds.
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