INTRODUCTION: GWI
and GWS
The latest Global
Wellness Institute (GWI) report, part of a White Paper Series, is
entitled Understanding Wellness: Four Global Forces Driving the Growth
of the Wellness Economy.
The report traces
factors going far back in history that were seeds for the eventual emergence of
wellness, starting with ayurveda, traditional Chinese and ancient Greek
medicines from around 3000-500 B.C. to the present day. Of special interest is
a section entitled 20th Century: Wellness Spreads and Get Serious. This
sub-heading sketches a 30-year period from the 1970s to the end of the century.
Full disclosure:
Any assessment on my part of initiatives by GWI will be influenced, even if
unconsciously, by the fact that I'm an enthusiast for the role GWI has played
and continues to contribute to the advance of the art and science of the
wellness concept. Furthermore, I've shared a platform with the Chairman/CEO of
the organization at a National Wellness Conference in Stevens Point and was a
featured presenter (along with Dr. John Travis) at the 2014 summit in
Marrakesh, Morocco.
So, bring along a
few grains of salt should the encomium that follows seem overly high at times.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE
REPORT
The focus of Understanding
Wellness is not wellness as a personal philosophy, mindset and
lifestyle but rather the business of services, programs and facilities that are
represented here under the broadest possible label of wellness. Understanding
Wellness describes what GWI considers a four-plus trillion dollar
global wellness economy. Dollar values are assigned to diverse sectors of this
purported economy.
The Report
describes the world's population as growing sicker, lonelier and older.
Chapters address an environmental crisis, a health crisis and a medical systems
crisis - all failing to keep up. Add to these dysfunctions an economic burden
for vast numbers of people along with worrisome consumer demographics and value
systems.
However, all is not
lost - other chapters offer the bright side of things. A case is made that
lifestyles are rapidly evolving for the better and investments in wellness by
industries noted above portend even more wellness-related spending in the
future. The authors, Ophelia Yeung and Katherine Johnston, believe that
wellness has become ubiquitous in media and advertising, public discourse and
private conversations, as well as in purchasing decisions and lifestyle choices
all around the world.
Yeung and Johnson
make the following statement:
The concept of
wellness is often not well understood, and the usage of the term can be
inconsistent and confusing.
This is an important point, and somewhat ironic, as the 14 pages of the Report are based upon a representation of wellness different from the initial meanings of wellness as a philosophy, mindset and lifestyle.
In any case, it
could be argued that the authors have an understanding of wellness unique to
the spa industry, not the movement that evolved over the 30-year stretch when,
as this GWI report states, the concept spread and got serious (i.e., the 1970s
to the end of the 20th century).
MISUNDERSTANDING WELLNESS
The Global Wellness
Economy Report accurately expresses the basic nature of plain vanilla wellness:
Wellness is an
(active) individual pursuit - we have self-responsibility for our own choices,
behaviors and lifestyles - but it is also significantly influenced by the
physical, social, and cultural environments in which we live.
However, in my
opinion, the Report strays from the quite specific dimensions of REAL wellness
in at least two ways:
By claiming four
global or macron categories, six dimensions, five sectors of merchandising
(spa, real estate, tourism, thermal/mineral springs and worksite wellness)!
What could be missing? Perhaps a partridge in a pear tree? The authors of the
REPORT are guilty of associating products, services and facilities with the
concept of wellness that are not really wellness in nature, not even as defined
in this GWI document.
In the section
about four global forces driving the growth of the wellness economy, the Report
authors state that:
... wellness
becoming a selling point for all kinds of products and services - from food and
vitamins to real estate and vacation packages, and from gym memberships and
healthcare plans to meditation apps and DNA testing kits.
Only by including such matters, all clearly beyond the GWI's own definition of wellness (active individual pursuit... self-responsibility for our own choices, behaviors and lifestyles), can a $4.2 trillion global wellness economy be fantasized.
The most jarring
statement, however, appears on the first page of the Report:
Wellness is a word
that was not often spoken or seen in print just ten years ago.
What? I had to read that several times to be sure it wasn't a misprint.
In fact, the
wellness movement was well along and thus the term was spoken and seen in print
at least 35 years before 2008. Recall that this period was described in the
Report itself as a time when wellness spread and got serious.
Wellness has been a
standard feature of worksite programming since the early 80s, and hospitals,
universities and non-profit organizations have invested in such programs and
facilities at least as long. Evidently, it was not seen in print or spoken in
the company of the authors before they went to work at GWI in 2008.
Let's very briefly
review a few instances of wellness being spoken, seen in print and otherwise
emerging before 2008.
WELLNESS SPOKEN OR
SEEN IN PRINT BEFORE 2008
It has been a long
time since Halbert Dunn introduced the phrase high level wellness around the
middle of the last century, and nearly 50 years since John (Jack) Travis hung a
sign (Wellness Resource Center) on the door of a three story building nestled
between trees in beautiful downtown Mill Valley. I published an article in
Prevention Magazine about Travis and his wellness center entitled, Meet
John W. Travis, Doctor of Wellbeing.
Here are examples
that demonstrate, contrary to the assertion that the wellness word was not
often spoken or seen in print before 2008, that is is wildly mistaken. Start
with seven different histories of the wellness movement. These were all written
well before 2008. They document the extent to which wellness was nearly a
household word, albeit one with meanings inconsistent and confusing.
* Seven
illustrative histories (there are more) document the extent of the term - 1)
James Miller, 2) the Library of Medicine, 3) James Strohecker, 4) Jana Stara -
A Hungarian Perspective, 5) Univ of Victoria, 6) NIH Worksite Wellness and
&) My own book The History and Future of Wellness (Kendall-Hunt, 1986).
* Dan Rather
interviewed Dr. Travis at the WRC in 1979 for an episode of 60 Minutes. Not so
enlightening about the nature of wellness, but a big national boost of
recognition for the word.
There were dozens
of books published, hundreds of conferences held, thousands of courses taught,
lectures given and articles written, both scholarly and popular, all at least
25 years prior to 2008. Every year since 1980, approximately a thousand
attendees, including delegations from abroad, spent five days in July at
wellness conferences on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens
Point. This event was widely known as wellness summer camp for adults (with
children¹s programs going on concurrently).
The GWI report
about wellness history, wellness definitions, wellness trends and a wellness global
economy contains 29 citations or references, but not even one to a wellness
book, wellness article or wellness journal. The references are to U. N. and
World Health Organization, Census Bureau and medical journals dealing with
global health data.
* A third of all
regional/metropolitan planning agencies promoted the concept in their areawide
plans by the mid-70's.
* Almost all large
and most moderate size corporations offered employees worksite wellness
learning opportunities on the job.
* The American
Hospital Association board of directors passed a resolution at their annual
conference in Chicago in 1979 urging all member hospitals throughout the U.S.
to promote wellness. Most did so.
In conclusion, the
modern wellness movement was underway and widely recognized, at least the term,
well before the 21st century.
Happily, the
authors of the GWI Report atone for these minor peccadillos in their summary
remarks, as follow:
For an expanding
set of consumers, wellness has become an important value system used to filter
daily life and decision-making, with a growing focus on issues such as food
quality and the way food is prepared and consumed; mitigating stress and
boosting mental wellness; incorporating movement into daily activities; environmental
consciousness; the yearning for connection; the desire for self-actualization;
and a search for happiness. The upward momentum of the global wellness economy
will be strong, as the underlying trends that propel it remain as compelling as
ever.
REAL WELLNESS
To put the GWI
Global Wellness Economy Report in perspective, consider again the core idea of
wellness, at least the REAL version of the word, as being descriptive of a
philosophy, a mindset, a set of ideas and principles consistent with embracing life
in a positive manner. This is not complicated.
REAL wellness
should encourage and guide people to think and function rationally, to live
exuberantly, to maintain physical fitness, to dine wisely consistent with
factual nutritional knowledge and to live as freely as possible. The latter
means becoming liberated from cultural or circumstantial elements such as
superstitions, irrational dogmas and other mental and social limitations that
add constraints on personal liberties.
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