The (Un)Wellness Tipping Point

Knowing the difference between health and harm has become increasingly difficult.

Last week, we explored how the relentless pursuit of health can often lead us further from well-being — becoming detrimental to our mental, emotional, and physical health.

We unpacked the seductive messaging of diet and wellness culture—the way it preys on our fears, promising control, certainty, and even an escape from the vulnerabilities of being human. We questioned the glorification of self-optimization, the obsession with "clean" eating, and the idea that tracking and perfecting every health choice will lead to a longer, happier life.

Obsessing Over Our Health Is Not Healthy

In a culture that worships productivity, discipline, and control, it’s easy to fall down the rabbit hole of constantly striving. And as I mentioned last week, that rabbit hole is masterfully disguised—marketed as a pathway to safety, purpose, and belonging. Yet many of us reach a point where health-seeking behaviors become rigid, isolating, and anxiety-inducing—where the stress of “doing it right” begins to erode the very well-being we set out to protect.

The Cost of Chasing an Illusion

The constant stress of trying to do health “right” isn’t just exhausting. It creates a chronic cycle of shame and not-enough-ness. It can erode our well-being just as much as any so-called “unhealthy” behavior. And, as we discussed last week, it can have profound consequences for our physical health.

There’s a fine line between caring for ourselves and living in fear of getting it wrong. The more we micromanage what we eat, how we move, and how our bodies look, the more we disconnect from our own needs. Hunger becomes something to fight. Fullness becomes failure. Exercise becomes obligation. Rest becomes guilt.

Obsessing over “health” at all costs doesn’t protect us from suffering. It often creates it.

Both the wellness and diet industries profit from keeping us locked in this cycle—convincing us that the answer to our suffering is that we just need to try harder, follow the next program, eat the “right” foods, fix ourselves just a little more. And when the goalposts are always moving, it becomes nearly impossible to recognize when we’ve crossed the threshold from care into harm.

If you’re anything like me, that tipping point cuts to the core of who you are and what you believe about yourself. It alters the way you show up in the world. It makes it harder to meet life’s ups and downs with self-compassion—because the expectation is always that you could have done better.

How Do We Know When We’ve Reached That Point?

Truthfully, it’s hard to identify the moment when something that once felt nourishing becomes depleting. And I think that’s precisely why so many of us find ourselves in the deep end of the wellness pool, unable to see (or perhaps admit) where it all started falling apart.

Because of course it makes sense to want to feel good. Of course it makes sense to be curious about ways to support our bodies. But if well-being is truly the goal, we have to be willing to ask: Is this actually making me feel better? And at what cost?

I’ve spent years researching, speaking, and writing about this tipping point—the one where our path transitions from healing to harmful. Like everything in life, it’s nuanced and deeply individual.

But where I’ve landed, for now, is this:

Wellness stops making us well when it moves away from care and into control.

When health becomes a rigid set of rules rather than a flexible, evolving relationship with our bodies. When the goal shifts from feeling good to being good—in the moralized, perfectionistic sense that diet and wellness culture thrive on. When our very sense of self is no longer an inner locus, but an external one, tethered to the whims of oppressive and ever-changing definitions of wellness.

We move away from health when:

• Our sense of worth is tied to our choices. If our value as a person fluctuates based on how “clean” our diet is, how many steps we take, or how well we avoid so-called “toxins,” we’re no longer making choices for nourishment—we’re making them out of fear. That can create and contribute to a cycle of chronic stress, anxiety, and debilitating self-judgment that pull us away from what matters most.

• Guilt, shame, or failure show up when we deviate from the rules. Eating becomes less about satisfaction and more about performance. A slice of cake feels like a moral failure. A skipped workout leads to self-criticism. Instead of allowing for flexibility, we punish ourselves for being human.

• Our world becomes smaller. If social events, travel, and spontaneity feel stressful rather than joyful because they disrupt our food and movement routines, we are not expanding our well-being—we are confining it. Reducing health down to what we eat and how much we move creates a very narrow and restrictive approach to caring for ourselves, but also a narrow and restrictive approach to this one precious life.

• We stop trusting our own bodies. Hunger is ignored because it’s “not time to eat.” Fullness is dismissed because we’ve learned to eat based on numbers rather than sensations. Fatigue is overridden because rest feels “unearned.” These are the natural cues that preserve our humanity, and when we silence them, we disconnect from ourselves.

• Movement turns into punishment. What once may have been joyful movement becomes an obligation, a means to "earn" food or compensate for eating. Rest feels like laziness rather than a necessary part of well-being. Moving our body, if it’s available to us, can be a compassionate practice; a way of connecting with ourselves. But instead, it becomes a form of self-discipline and obedience.

• The people closest to us express concern, but we don’t listen. Loved ones might notice before we do. When they gently suggest that our habits seem extreme, or that we don’t seem as happy, it’s worth pausing to reflect. But often, the deeper we are in rigid thinking, the harder it is to recognize when we need support. (It’s important to say that, on the flip side, it’s common to be praised for our “healthy lifestyle,” which can make this all the more difficult to disentangle).

• Our pursuit of health starts harming our physical body. Under-eating, over-exercising, chronic stress, or an obsession with “clean” eating can lead to injuries, nutritional deficiencies, burnout, digestive issues, and even a weakened immune system (and yes, this is true in any body size). The irony? In trying to be “healthy,” we may be putting our bodies under more strain than if we honored their needs and respected them like we do the people we love.

• Self-compassion is replaced by self-criticism. Perhaps the biggest red flag of all: When our inner voice becomes harsh and demanding, when we berate ourselves for not being "disciplined enough," when we lose the ability to extend the same kindness to ourselves that we would offer a friend. True well-being cannot exist in the absence of self-compassion.

The simplest way to sum this up is: we know we’ve crossed the line when the pursuit of health isolates us from the very things that make life meaningful: joy, pleasure, connection, kindness, spontaneity, and trust in ourselves.

Reclaiming True Well-Being (It’s More Than Personal)

If you see yourself in any of the signs listed above, know this: You are not failing. You are not broken. You are, in all honesty, responding appropriately to a world that continues to sell us reductive and oppressive messaging about our worth and value. Healing is not about abandoning care for your body; it’s about expanding your definition of what care truly means.

So what does it look like to shift back toward actual health? It looks like flexibility. Like allowing for imperfection. It means understanding your true preferences and honoring them without judgment or the pressures of neurotypicality. It means choosing nourishment over numbers, rest over rigidity, and connection over control.

At its core, true health is not about restriction—it’s about resilience. It’s not about perfection—it’s about presence. And most of all, it’s about trust. Trust in our bodies. Trust in our choices. Trust in the fact that we deserve care, respect, ease, and peace.

But even as we redefine health on our own terms, there’s a bigger conversation to be had—one that extends beyond personal healing and into the politics and systems that shape our understanding of health in the first place. Because our struggles with food, movement, and self-worth don’t happen in a vacuum. They exist within a culture that treats health as a moral imperative, as though it’s a sign of virtue rather than a product of privilege, access, and circumstance.

If we want to move toward true well-being—not just for ourselves, but for everyone—we have to ask harder questions:

Who benefits from the idea that health is an individual responsibility? Who is left out of mainstream definitions of health? And what would it mean to see health not as a personal achievement, but as a matter of social justice? We’ll explore that next.

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For now, I just want to leave you with this:

You were never meant to spend your life policing your body.
You were never meant to spend your days consumed by what you eat, how you move, or whether you’re “doing it right.”
Your worth, your health, and your joy were never meant to be a performance.

And you don’t have to do this alone.

When did you realize your pursuit of health was beginning to take away from your well-being? What were the signs?

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Related Episodes of Full Plate Podcast:

#147: Health Anxiety, Coping with Uncertainty, and How Diet Culture Impacts Our Mental Health with Dr. Diana Gordon

#141: Processed Foods, Nutrition Misinformation, and the Elitism of Wellness with Shana Spence

#132: The Connection Between Perfectionism, Health Anxiety, and Orthorexia with Natalie Rose, Therapist & Coach

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