The Natural Health Industry: Breeding Ground for Insecurity

Working at a yoga studio is a good way to inadvertently become very conscious of the health industry and especially the natural health industry. I have read natural health books, free natural health magazines and been to health fairs. I have met all kinds of people buying, selling, and recommending all kinds of healthy things. While it has been an interesting experience, and at times helpful and beneficial, this overexposure to the natural health industry has given me cause to become suspicious and disappointed.

Advertising is advertising, and what sells is what gets on TV, in magazines, and on billboards. A lot of general advertising in America today comes under scrutiny and criticism for creating and playing off of insecurities to sell items: every day, commercials and other forms of ads implicitly or explicitly tell women that they're too old, too fat, too weak; that their house is not clean enough, their kids are not smart enough, their clothes are not new enough. Men fall victim to insecurity-producing ads too: men's manhood is often attacked (whether subtly or outright) in ads, with the phrase "a real man" getting tossed around, and insinuations that a man is weak if he does not buy/use a certain product. Anyone who has ever been in charge of marketing knows that creating and emphasizing insecurities is a great way to sell products. Keep consumers in a haze of fear, worry, and anxiety, and they'll naturally buy whatever they can to try to fix all their supposed "problems" (problems that they did not even know they had before getting inundated by advertising).