The Direct Message
Tension: The funniest person in a friend group is often the one carrying the most unacknowledged pain, because their humor creates an illusion of resilience that prevents anyone from checking on them.
Noise: Society classifies humor as a ‘mature’ defense mechanism and celebrates those who wield it, conflating comedic skill with emotional well-being and rewarding the performance that keeps the real person invisible.
Direct Message: The joke was never about making people laugh — it was about making sure they stayed. And the only person who knows the difference between genuine resilience and skilled deflection is the one who can’t stop performing.
Every DMNews article follows The Direct Message methodology.
Most people think wellness culture is different from diet culture. They believe we’ve moved past the calorie-counting, weight-obsessed 1980s into something more enlightened. After all, nobody talks about grapefruit diets anymore. Instead, we talk about nourishing our bodies, honoring our hunger, and eating intuitively. Sounds healthier, right?
Here’s what’s actually happening: the same companies, the same messaging, and the same focus on body control just got better at marketing. The transformation wasn’t in the substance but in the packaging. Where diet culture was obvious about its goals (lose weight, look thin), wellness culture speaks in code. It talks about optimization, inflammation, and toxins. But scratch the surface, and you’ll find the same old restrictions dressed up in new language.
The vocabulary changed but the rules stayed the same
I spent ten years in the wellness world, first as an instructor, then writing about wellness. What struck me wasn’t how different wellness culture was from diet culture, but how similar. We just stopped calling things diets. Instead of weight loss programs, we had detoxes and cleanses. Instead of forbidden foods, we had inflammatory foods. Instead of being on a diet, we were following a lifestyle.
Susan Roberts, Professor of Nutrition and Psychiatry at Tufts University, puts it plainly: “Dieting is not a fashionable word these days.” So the industry adapted. Weight Watchers became WW and started talking about wellness. Jenny Craig pivoted to holistic health. Suddenly everyone was selling the same restrictions but calling them self-care.
The shift is strategic. When I wrote for health publications, I noticed how carefully the language was chosen. You couldn’t say “lose weight” anymore. You had to say “optimize your health” or “reduce inflammation.” You couldn’t tell people to restrict calories. You told them to practice mindful eating or intermittent fasting. The goals remained the same, but the words changed to match what people wanted to hear.
How wellness culture creates the problems it claims to solve
One pattern became clear during my years in the industry: wellness brands are remarkably good at creating anxiety they then offer to resolve. They introduce new things to worry about (toxins, inflammation, gut health) and then sell the solution. The problem and the solution often come from the same source.
Think about how this works. First, you learn that regular food is full of toxins. Then you discover that these toxins are causing all your problems: fatigue, bloating, brain fog. Finally, you’re offered a solution: a cleanse, a supplement, a special diet that will fix everything. The cycle repeats with new concerns and new products.
The people I met in yoga studios weren’t looking for another set of food rules. They were managing stress, seeking community, trying to feel some control in their lives. But what they got was often another source of stress: Am I eating the right things? Am I pure enough? Am I doing wellness correctly?
My family’s approach to food was simple and communal. Meals brought people together. Food had cultural meaning beyond its nutritional content. But in wellness spaces, I watched food become a source of individual anxiety and moral judgment. Every choice became weighted with significance. Every meal became an opportunity to succeed or fail at being healthy.
The rebrand worked because it addressed our discomfort with diet culture
By the early 2000s, people were getting wise to diet culture’s tricks. We’d seen the cycle of restriction and rebound too many times. We knew diets didn’t work long-term. Research was mounting about the dangers of yo-yo dieting and the psychological harm of constant food restriction.
So the industry pivoted. Instead of admitting the fundamental approach was flawed, it changed the marketing. Now it wasn’t about being thin (though that was still the implied goal). It was about being healthy, strong, empowered. The restrictions remained, but the framing changed.
This rebrand was brilliant because it addressed our criticisms without actually changing anything substantive. We said diets were too restrictive? Now it’s a lifestyle. We said focusing on weight was harmful? Now we focus on wellness (but still track our bodies obsessively). We said diet culture was toxic? Now we call it self-care.
The same people who would have been counting calories in 1985 are now counting macros. The same restrictions that were once about fitting into a dress are now about reducing inflammation. The moral hierarchy of bodies that diet culture created persists in wellness culture, just with different vocabulary.
Who benefits from keeping these myths alive
The wellness industry is worth over $4.5 trillion globally. That’s not built on people feeling good about themselves. It’s built on creating and maintaining dissatisfaction that requires constant products, programs, and services to address.
Every influencer selling a detox tea, every studio offering a cleanse, every app tracking your fasting windows has a financial stake in you believing your body needs fixing. They benefit from you never quite reaching the goal, always needing one more program, one more supplement, one more transformation.
During my years writing for health publications, I saw how this worked from the inside. Articles needed to create urgency. They needed to make readers feel that their current habits were inadequate. Then they needed to offer solutions that seemed achievable but were actually difficult to maintain long-term. This kept readers coming back for more advice, more products, more fixes.
The individual coaches and instructors often believe they’re helping. I certainly did when I taught yoga. But the system itself depends on perpetual dissatisfaction. It needs you to always be optimizing, always be improving, never quite arriving at “healthy enough.”
What this actually looks like in practice
Walk into any wellness space, scroll through any health-focused social media, and you’ll see diet culture’s fingerprints everywhere. The green juice that costs $15 and promises to “reset” your system. The elimination diet that cuts out entire food groups in the name of discovering sensitivities. The fitness challenges that are really weight loss competitions with better branding.
Even the language of intuitive eating and body positivity has been co-opted. Companies now sell intuitive eating meal plans (missing the entire point) and body positive weight loss programs (a complete contradiction). The rebellion against diet culture has been absorbed and repackaged as another product to sell.
The most telling sign? The outcomes haven’t changed. People are still cycling through restriction and rebellion. They’re still tying their worth to their food choices and body size. They’re just using different words to describe the same patterns.
A clearer picture of what health actually means
Real health isn’t about optimization or purity. It’s not about eliminating food groups or following strict protocols. The research consistently shows that health behaviors matter more than weight, that restriction backfires, that stress about food choices can be more harmful than the food choices themselves.
What would wellness look like if it wasn’t rebranded diet culture? It might focus on addition rather than restriction: adding movement you enjoy, adding foods that make you feel good, adding stress management that actually works. It might recognize that health is multifaceted and individual, not a one-size-fits-all program. It might acknowledge that for many people, pursuing perfect health is itself unhealthy.
Most importantly, it would stop creating anxiety and calling it awareness. It would stop selling solutions to problems it invented. It would recognize that most of us are doing fine without constant optimization, that our bodies are remarkably good at maintaining balance when we stop interfering.
The next time you encounter wellness content, ask yourself: Is this really different from diet culture, or is it just speaking a language I’m more comfortable with? Is this adding to my life or creating new anxieties? Who benefits if I believe I need this product, program, or protocol?
The answers might surprise you. Or maybe, if you’ve been paying attention, they won’t surprise you at all. The rebrand was clever, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And that clarity is its own form of wellness.
