The Wellness Trap: Health, But Make it Marketable

By Oumou Keita, Senior Writer Edited by Ava Pettigrew

Walk down any major street and you’ll find them: bright storefronts with frosted windows, Pilates studios and boutique gyms glowing in soft white light. Their branding looks effortless, almost weightless. Inside, reformer machines line the room. The message is clear before anyone speaks a word: this is a place where health looks a certain way, and that look costs money.

The idea of wellness wasn’t always dressed in glass and pastel lettering. A decade ago, the conversation was simpler. Yoga mats rolled across park grass. Kale smoothies and morning jogs were the standard markers of  “taking care of yourself.” The language has shifted since then, moving faster than most people can keep up with. Collagen powder rose to popularity in 2017. By 2020, apps promised to track your cortisol and teach you how to “manage” stress on demand. Come 2024, carbs had somehow landed on society’s most unwanted list. The past few years have cycled through high-protein snacks, matcha versus coffee debates, and endless “clean girl” aesthetics. Each phase arrives with conviction, and each one fades when the next takes its place.

That is to say, wellness thrives on novelty. A routine that feels steady doesn’t sell; a new threat or miracle does. This has decades' worth of proof. In 2015, General Mills faced a class-action lawsuit over its Cheerios Protein cereal, accused of misleading consumers with deceptive marketing. Plaintiffs claimed the product exaggerated its protein benefits by comparing larger serving sizes and including protein from added milk. Despite being marketed as a healthier, high-protein option, Cheerios Protein contained significantly more sugar: up to 17 times more than original Cheerios. In 2018, a settlement required General Mills to clarify that the cereal’s protein content excluded milk and to label the product explicitly as sweetened. Here, the claims rarely mattered. What mattered was staying relevant.

Pilates was developed by German-born physical trainer Joseph Pilates during World War I as a method to rehabilitate injured soldiers. Having struggled with various childhood illnesses, including rickets and rheumatic fever, Joseph was motivated to strengthen his own body and help others do the same. His approach was shaped by his wartime work alongside his father’s involvement in fitness and sport and the rich post-war intellectual era in Germany. Once dismissed as a system of recovery, Pilates is now positioned as both elite and aspirational. Social media favors its imagery: controlled movements and a promise of a sculpted body without the sweat of traditional gyms. But the conversation around Pilates doesn’t stop at exercise. It’s about who practices it. A monthly membership can run $200 or more, placing it firmly in the category of lifestyle choice for the upper-middle class; though, a mat on your bedroom floor does the job.

On TikTok, however, creators argue over whether Pilates “belongs” to a certain group. One video that circulated this past summer from creator @PilatesBodyRaven claimed the workout isn’t “for everyone,” and that “people have worked generations to preserve this method of exercise…nothing about Pilates is giving ‘cheap.’” The message was simple. If you’re not wealthy and already practicing wellness the right way, don’t bother showing up, and definitely, don’t bother complaining.

The irony is that wellness sells itself as universal. Ads insist anyone can live a healthier life, but the reality is uneven. Access to boutique studios depends on zip codes. Access to fresh produce depends on grocery budgets. Even the time to prepare a smoothie or attend a class presumes a certain kind of work schedule. The wellness industry avoids these facts by shifting focus to aesthetics. Health becomes marketable when it looks good on a feed.

Now renowned as the “Pilates Princes,” we see women in soft matching sets, hair pulled into loose buns, drinking green juice before a session. It’s a look tied to hyper-femininity and even the polished “tradwife” revival. Fetch asked 20 Syracuse University students to share the first word they think of when they hear

“Pilates.” 

“Girly”

“Workout”

“Flexible”

“Lean”

“Expensive”

And expensive it is.

The numbers show how much money is tied up in this. A 2025 report by Wellness Creative estimates the boutique fitness industry to be worth $59.8 billion in the U.S., while Business Wire suggests the global boutique fitness market to rise to $79.66 billion by 2029. A Precedence Research report estimates the global nutritional supplements market size to be $517.23 billion in 2025. At home, a 16.9 oz bottle of chlorophyll water typically costs around $4.99, while a gallon of milk averages about $3.70 in U.S. grocery stores. The logic of wellness is clear: the more exclusive the product, the higher its value. The actual health benefit is secondary.

Wellness is about being marketable. Photos of iced matcha in a glass tumbler carry more weight than its antioxidant content. A kitchen stocked with protein snacks signals discipline, even if the difference from regular snacks is negligible. What health offers in this context is proof: proof of taste, proof of wealth, proof of being in step with the moment.

None of this erases the core truth: people care about their health. They care about living longer, feeling stronger, and building habits that sustain them. But wellness culture blurs those goals with performance. It’s hard to separate one from the other when the market thrives on blending them. The question isn’t whether health has become commodified; that’s already visible in every ad, every subscription, every influencer haul. The question is how much longer consumers will accept wellness as a product rather than a practice.

Because beneath the endless cycles, the answer is plain. Wellness doesn’t need constant reinvention. It doesn’t require $200 classes or a new vocabulary every season. Health exists outside of market trends, though it’s harder to see when every platform suggests otherwise. The wellness industry thrives by promising access to something everyone already has, but not everyone believes they can reach: a body that feels cared for.

© 2025 by FETCH COLLECTIVE