Aug. 8, 2025

Fresh Take: Amy Larocca, HOW TO BE WELL

Journalist Amy Larocca, author of the new book HOW TO BE WELL, joins Amy and Margaret to unpack the $6.8T wellness industry: whether it’s just beauty and weight loss in disguise, how it particularly targets women, and how we can spare our daughters from it.

Margaret and Amy talk with award-winning journalist and author Amy Larocca, whose new book HOW TO BE WELL takes a deeply researched look at the trillion-dollar wellness industry.

From supplements to concierge doctors to SoulCycle-as-religion, Larocca exposes how much of modern “self-care” is really about chasing youth, thinness, and unattainable perfection under a new label: wellness.

We cover:

  • The real reason “wellness” exploded—and how it's really just rebranded beauty, fitness, and weight loss
  • Why GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic and Wegovy) are shifting the cultural conversation on body image
  • How women seeking medical care are often underserved, misdiagnosed, or dismissed—and driven toward alternative wellness spaces as a result
  • Why so much wellness messaging is about “getting back to yourself”
  • The role of class, whiteness, and marketing in wellness culture
  • How to protect the next generation—especially our daughters—from internalizing toxic messages about beauty and body image

Here's where you can find Amy Larocca:

 

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