The Wellness Industry is Failing Black Women: 5 Hard Truths We must Call Out
Let’s be real: wellness, as it's sold today, wasn’t created with Black women in mind. The version we often see in the media is rooted in luxury retreats, expensive athleisure, and curated minimalist routines and often feels more like a trend than a tradition. And while there’s nothing wrong with sipping green juice or rolling out a yoga mat (both can be beautiful tools for healing), the issue is that these spaces often exclude Black bodies, Black stories, and the Black cultures who’ve been practicing wellness long before it was commercialized. We’ve always been healing. We’ve always had rituals, herbs, prayers, and community, but the spaces labeled “wellness” often exclude us.
Let’s call out the top barriers that Black women face in the wellness space:
1. Whitewashed Wellness
Take a look at your average wellness campaign or influencer feed and tell me who do you see? Thin, white, wealthy women in minimal homes sipping smoothies. Rarely do you see curvy Black women with headwraps or vibrant ancestral energy. The lack of representation sends a clear message: this space isn’t for you. But the truth is our presence is powerful, and we deserve to be seen in the spaces we help build and sustain.
2. Medical Racism
Wellness isn’t just about the aesthetics; it's also about being seen, heard, and treated with dignity in healthcare. For too long, Black women have been dismissed, misdiagnosed, and mistreated by the medical system. From ignored symptoms to fatal delays in care, we are fighting for our lives in exam rooms that don't always believe our pain. No wonder so many of us seek alternative and ancestral healing. It’s not just preference. It’s protection.
3. Body Shame Disguised as Health
The modern wellness industry often equates thinness with worthiness and health with aesthetics. Black women in bigger bodies are told, implicitly or explicitly, that wellness is only accessible after weight loss. But we reject that! Wellness is not a reward for shrinking. Our bodies are not a before photo. We can be healthy, joyful, and whole right now, exactly as we are.
4. The Strong Black Woman schema
This cultural script tells us we have to do it all. We carry families, communities, trauma, and expectations and we’re supposed to do it with grace, without rest, without complaint. But strength without softness becomes survival; survival is not the same as wellness. We are allowed to rest. We are allowed to feel. We are allowed to need. Period.
5. The Cost of Healing
Let’s talk access. Therapy, acupuncture, organic groceries, herbal blends…these things add up! Too often, Black women are priced out of wellness, especially when we’re also caring for children, elders, and everyone in between. This is not access. It’s exclusion! Especially when most of these commercialized wellness trends are indigenous practices that have been rebranded and sold back to us at an exorbitant cost. Healing is not a luxury! It is a birthright.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
We reclaim.
We remember.
We rebuild wellness in our image.
That means creating and supporting spaces that honor our bodies, our cultural traditions, and our truths. That means returning to ancestral healing, centering joy, and choosing softness as resistance. That means saying: we deserve to be well, not someday, but today.
Because wellness wasn’t built with us in mind—so we’re building something better.
Ready to heal without their blueprint?
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