November Book of the Month: Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind

The acclaimed multi-disciplinary artist and author of Like a Bird and How to Cure a Ghost turns a critical eye to the commodification of wellness, examining how self-care practices have been appropriated and repackaged through the lens of social justice. With both research and lived experience, she offers resources to make self-care accessible to everyone—regardless of race, identity, socioeconomic status, or ability.

Growing up in Australia, Fariha Róisín—a Bangladeshi Muslim—struggled to belong. In her efforts to assimilate, she distanced herself from her South Asian heritage. Years later in the United States, she recognized a painful irony: the very traditions, foods, and practices she once rejected, from ashwagandha to prayer, were being rebranded and sold back to the mainstream—often by white wellness entrepreneurs to white consumers at a premium.

Part memoir, part journalistic inquiry, Who Is Wellness For? investigates how the health and wellness industry has transformed global healing traditions into luxury goods, profiting from the wisdom of Black, brown, and Indigenous communities while often excluding them. Divided into four sections—Mind, Body, Self-Care, and Justice—Róisín explores meditation and intuition, the physiology of trauma, her own experiences with fatphobia and chronic illness, and the pitfalls of the self-care industrial complex. She ultimately argues that true wellness requires a collective investment in everyone’s wellbeing and a cultural shift toward nurturance.

Deeply intimate and revelatory, this book challenges us to confront the imbalances of modern wellness culture and invites readers to reimagine self-care as inclusive, accessible, and rooted in justice.

Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind
Format: Hardcover
Author: Fariha Róisín (published by Harper Wave)
ISBN: 9780063077089
Publication Date: June 14, 2022
Page Count: 320