- Location
- Zoom
- Series/Type
- Alumni Event, DLSPH Event, Faculty/Staff Event, Student Event
- Format
- Online
- Dates
- March 5, 2025 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Links
Title: Why wellness sells: How the idea of wellness drives markets in invisible ways
Presenter: Professor Colleen Derkatch (Toronto Metropolitan University)
Abstract: The idea of wellness is particularly powerful in contemporary culture and the emphasis on individuals to maintain and optimize their health and mitigate risks received renewed emphasis through and following the COVID-19 pandemic. The pursuit of wellness has spawned an industry marketing natural health products, including supplements and other therapies positioned in contrast to medicines produced by the pharmaceutical industry and serving as the key tools of biomedicine. In this seminar, we will discuss why wellness sells, drawing from humanities scholarship on the rhetoric of health and wellness, and examining the self-generating arguments that work to promote and sustain wellness-seeking behaviours. Though not immediately visible, these arguments work to drive markets and shape consumption patterns and how people think about their risk, health, and what it means to be well.