The Gospel of Wellness is the book I most strongly recommend to those who are invested in making themselves as healthy as possible through trendy products, practices, or ser vices. It offers healthy skepticism, investigative reporting, fascinating insights, and the empathy of an author whose life became consumed by the enormous wellness industry, which consists of anything marketed to those “in active pursuit of well-being outside of the realm of medicine” (4). The industry’s offerings promise to make people well in the physical, mental, social, and spiritual domains.
Rina Raphael is an accomplished journalist whose initial reporting on the wellness industr y focused on lifestyle and business coverage but later expanded to science reporting emphasizing the importance of evidence to back up claims. She separates the wheat from the chaff and explains the challenge of sorting out causation versus correlation regarding medical advice. She shares insights f rom trustworthy experts.
Her popular wellness industry newsletter on Substack, Well to Do, is engaging and informative. It covers topics of interest to consumers and wellness industry insiders.