The Wellness Syndrome

Book summary

Carl Cederström is an associate professor of organization theory at Stockholm University. His work has been published in the Guardian, the New York Times and the Harvard Business Review.

The pursuit of wellness often backfires, creating stress, guilt, and isolation when individuals fail to meet rigid standards of health and virtue. This relentless focus on personal responsibility fosters burnout, anxiety, and societal divisions, while ignoring systemic issues like economic inequality. Politically, wellness ideologies have been used to justify welfare cuts, blaming individual shortcomings rather than structural problems. Biomorality equates health with virtue, stigmatizing those who don’t conform and narrowing societal values to prioritize appearance over deeper qualities like kindness. In workplaces, wellness programs shift the burden of stress onto employees, promoting relentless productivity under the guise of self-care. While wellness culture promises success and happiness through fitness and discipline, its rigid framework often limits personal freedom and meaningful experiences, replacing connection and growth with an endless cycle of self-optimization.

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