Self-Care Is Awesome and Also a Scam

Summary

Podcast: Infamous

Episode Title: Self-Care Is Awesome and Also a Scam
Air Date: December 18, 2025
Guest: Amy LaRocca (Author, “How to Be Well”)
Hosts: Infamous team (Campside Media / Sony Music Entertainment)

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into America’s obsession with wellness and self-care, exploring how the concept has shifted from basic health maintenance to aspirational consumerism. The conversation features Amy LaRocca, former fashion editor and author of "How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic One Dubious Cure at a Time." The hosts and LaRocca unpack the evolution and contradictions of the wellness industry, examining its links to privilege, capitalism, motherhood, and female self-worth.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wellness as a Ubiquitous Marketing Term

• The episode kicks off with a discussion of how wellness has become a catch-all concept, especially prominent in gift guides and holiday shopping.
  • Amy LaRocca [02:24]: “Wellness has totally taken over. And I think when you look at gift guides, wellness is a category, right? Like a wellness wellness gift guide.”
• Wellness is now an umbrella used for everything from sleep trackers to candles, losing its original meaning and depth.
  • Amy LaRocca [03:05]: “The problem with wellness is the word is so big that it doesn't really even mean anything anymore.”
• LaRocca notes the rise of "mindful" branding even in unlikely spaces, such as banking, showing the term's dilution.

2. Health as Luxury vs. Right

• The conversation shifts to the troubling way health is being marketed similarly to luxury items like handbags.
  • Amy LaRocca [04:12]: “Our health was being sold to us using a lot of the same marketing techniques as… the luxury industry used to sell fashion. Our health was being treated like a handbag, basically, like a really expensive leather good.”
• LaRocca reflects that the COVID pandemic brutally exposed the risks of treating health as a consumer good instead of a human right, with the wealthy faring better.
• The hosts and guest discuss the bifurcation between people struggling with real healthcare access and those navigating “which face mask or Pilates class” to choose.

3. The Evolution of Wellness & Fashion’s Role

• LaRocca, a fashion editor turned wellness commentator, describes witnessing insiders in fashion shift towards wellness, seeking new forms of status and exclusivity.
  • Amy LaRocca [07:47]: “Fashion started feeling more democratic… so the people who are used to having that, that access, we’re sort of searching around for something less accessible to feel cool.”
• The conversation references Amanda Chantal Bacon (Moon Juice) as emblematic of the new aspirational wellness elite.

4. Wellness & Morality: Empowerment or Pressure?

• The dialogue critiques how wellness and beauty products are now morally coded as empowerment rather than simple consumption.
  • Amy LaRocca [09:51]: “When you rebrand beauty as wellness, as self care, it definitely elevates beauty.”

5. Motherhood, Blame, and the Wellness Trap

• LaRocca shares her personal story of becoming the mother of a very ill child — an experience rife with guilt, self-doubt, and pressure from the wellness culture.
  • Amy LaRocca [13:14]: “The kind of blame game that goes on in motherhood when something goes wrong, and the way that people look at the mother of a sick child, like, well, what did you do? What’s wrong with you?”
• She details the pervasive sense of failure mothers feel, exacerbated by societal and industry expectations, and how wellness products step in as proposed fixes for that anxiety.

6. Vulnerability, Control, and Industry Exploitation

• The hosts and LaRocca address the tendency to seek control over one’s environment and self in response to systemic vulnerability (e.g., pollution, disease, contaminated water) — and how wellness industry capitalizes on it.
  • Amy LaRocca [17:28]: “That’s another place where wellness really steps in, is when we’re experiencing that vulnerability... Let me find the areas where I can soothe myself with a sensation that I do [have control].”

7. Real Wellness: The Basics vs. the Industry

• LaRocca offers blunt advice on what actually matters for health:
  • Amy LaRocca [20:08]: “Drink water. Like, that’s it… and sleep.”
  • Amy LaRocca [20:17]: “If you have access to good food and water and sleep, you are 99% of the way home.”
• The hosts marvel at the size and ever-expanding scope of the wellness industry, despite its focus on marginal gains over fundamentals.

8. Ozempic, Inclusive Sizing, and the New Morality of Thinness

• LaRocca tracks the impact of weight-loss drugs (Ozempic, GLP-1s) on cultural norms, noting a retreat from the body positivity trend and the new stigmas around “unearned” thinness.
  • Amy LaRocca [23:20]: “People on Ozempic are criticized as aggressively as overweight people, if not more so… this idea of there's a kind of pure way to be thin. And…suffering has to kind of be attached to it, or it's inferior.”

9. The Endless Chase: Glow, Youth, and Self-Optimizing

• The hosts and guest unpack the concept of “glow” and how what’s billed as wellness is often just a coded pursuit of youthfulness.
  • Amy LaRocca [23:46]: “It's youth. And so…slap the word wellness onto it and you suddenly have a moral case for your beauty product…which is just telling women they should spend money and be younger.”
• Shocking stats underscore the shift in beauty expectations:
  • Co-host [24:22]: “In the 1950s, only about 7% of American women color their hair… now... 70%.”

10. Reflection: Generational Pressures and the Self-Improvement Treadmill

• LaRocca becomes especially introspective about writing her book for her daughters, wishing to help them escape the “self-improvement treadmill.”
  • Amy LaRocca [27:30]: “How much time did we waste feeling like we didn’t look good enough or we just wasted so much time feeling like we fell short.”
• She discusses the pain of seeing young girls internalize self-loathing via beauty content on TikTok, paralleling her own experience with Seventeen magazine and unattainable fashion role models.

11. Navigating Personal Wellness Without Falling for the Scam

• The hosts ponder: If so much of wellness is an aspirational scam, should we bother gifting wellness-y products at all? LaRocca recommends only gifting what genuinely brings joy and use, not what nags you to “do better.”
  • Amy LaRocca [30:58]: “What you don't want is that stuff that just gathers up in your house and just like, sort of yells at you from the corner, or like the sort of gadgets or the whatever it is that was supposed to improve you.”

12. Finding the Balance: The Wellness Tightrope

• LaRocca sums up her overall approach:
  • Amy LaRocca [32:04]: “I always think of it as like a tightrope…On this side… things in the beauty, wellness world that make me feel good. And on this side…when beauty and wellness makes me feel really bad about myself. And…you don't always realize when you've tipped off of it and like, in which direction.”
  • Amy LaRocca [32:40]: “Is this making me feel better about myself or worse?”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• "Wellness has totally taken over." – Amy LaRocca [02:24]
• "Our health was being treated like a handbag, basically, like a really expensive leather good." – Amy LaRocca [04:12]
• "The kind of blame game that goes on in motherhood when something goes wrong… like, well, what did you do?" – Amy LaRocca [13:14]
• "Drink water. Like, that's it. And sleep. And go to sleep." – Amy LaRocca [20:08]
• “If you have access to good food and water and sleep, you are 99% of the way home.” – Amy LaRocca [20:17]
• “People on Ozempic are criticized as aggressively as overweight people, if not more so… this idea of there's a kind of pure way to be thin. And…suffering has to kind of be attached to it, or it's inferior.” – Amy LaRocca [23:20]
• "How much time did we waste feeling like we didn’t look good enough or we just wasted so much time feeling like we fell short." – Amy LaRocca [27:30]
• “Is this making me feel better about myself or worse?” – Amy LaRocca [32:40]

---

Segment Timestamps

• Wellness as a Catch-All and its Loss of Meaning: 02:24–05:47
• Health as a Luxury & Pandemic Lessons: 05:47–08:39
• Exclusivity Transitions from Fashion to Wellness: 08:39–09:56
• Motherhood, Guilt, and the Pressure to be Perfect: 12:20–18:27
• Coping with Lack of Control & Industry Capitalization: 17:28–18:59
• What Actually Works: The Basics of Wellbeing: 20:01–20:43
• The Ozempic Effect & Cultural Shifts: 21:09–23:20
• Glow, Aging, and Self-Perception: 23:37–25:08
• Generational Pressures & Reflections: 27:17–29:56
• Gifting Wellness Products: Scam or Self-Expression?: 29:57–32:22
• Conclusion: Walking the Wellness Tightrope: 32:04–32:44

---

Summary Tone & Language

The conversation is both witty and incisive, approaching the subject with skepticism, personal anecdotes, and empathy. Amy LaRocca’s candor and dry humor come through in her critiques of both the beauty industry and her own complicity as a former fashion insider and mother. The hosts create a conversational space that’s relatable, critical, and ultimately optimistic about the possibility of balanced self-care.

---

Ideal for Listeners Who:

• Are interested in the intersection of media, culture, and consumer trends
• Struggle with the pressures of self-care messaging
• Enjoy nuanced, entertaining discussions about modern wellness and beauty
• Want to reflect critically on what genuine self-care means

---

Recommendation:
Read Amy LaRocca’s "How to Be Well" for a satirical yet deeply researched look at America’s self-care craze, and consider your own relationship with wellness — is it helping, harming, or, just maybe, a bit of both?

Transcript

[Podcast Host/Ad Reader]

Do you have that one person on your list who is such a struggle to shop for? I know I do. I'm not saying who they are, but this year they are getting an Aura frame. It's the perfect gift that's so personalized and I know that they're actually going to enjoy it. You can preload photos before it ships. That means photos of that really awesome vacation you took together or photos of you guys together last season. Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag. So that's one less gift to wrap for a limited time. Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by Wirecutter by using the promo code Infamous at checkout. That's auraframes.com promo code infamous. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays and support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[Amy LaRocca]

Campsite Media.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Welcome back to Infamous, a Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media production. We are here this week with Amy LaRocca who is a writer that I have known forever and ever who is excellent. She has written an incredible book called how to Be well and the subhead is Navigating our self Care Epidemic One Dubious Cure at a time. It's pink the book, but then there's a sort of ironic candle that's smoking with black smoke and there's a sticker on the candle that says Relax. So it's an incredible history of wellness. What is even that word? How did we get to this place where everything can be fixed by like a yori poor strip? It's a catch all phrase for what ails us. Or is it actually what ails us? And in this holiday season I'm sure all of us have been thinking about this a lot because to be honest, when I'm looking to try to buy people things now, I'm often thinking to myself, what's a nice little self care thing I can give them? Should I give them a candle? Has wellness taken over, Amy? Is it all is life wellness?

[Amy LaRocca]

Wellness has totally taken over. And I think when you look at gift guides, wellness is a category, right? Like a wellness wellness gift guide.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You can get some weird electronic thing that you probably won't use.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yep, definitely. That's gonna like either track your sleep and make you more neurotic. You could get a candle, but then maybe it's the wrong kind of candle. So inhaling it might give you like a disease, but the aroma might make you more relaxed.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

So everything in wellness is this kind of double edged sword, right? Where you're like, is this making me better, is this making me worse? Why do I want in and out at the same time?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Which is really a double double with extra sauce.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yeah, I think that's really the problem. And it's this tightrope that we're all walking right where we love it so much and we want it so bad, and we hate it so much and we want it get out of our lives, but we can't resist. The problem with wellness is the word is so big that it doesn't really even mean anything anymore. And people sort of slap it on everything from, as you said, like your slippers to like your checking account. I mean, you could have like your mindful bank manager slap it on a word and it takes on this altruistic idea. So I think it's really important when you talk about wellness because it's basically a catch all marketing phrase that you start talking about what you mean. So you talk about the affordability crisis and how that plays into wellness and you start thinking, wait, we've just gotten rid of the Affordable Care act, right? So it's like, can we even pay for our health care? So let's start there. Like millions of Americans have just had their health care. Their basic health costs skyrocket out of reach. And then you have other Americans who are like, I don't know, should I do yoga or Pilates and like this face mask or that face mask. So it's like you have this really bifurcated idea about health and wellness. And, you know, who is it for and what does it mean and what does it include and what does it not include? And what is luxury and what isn't luxury? And you know, we know each other as you and I because we worked at the magazine together at New York magazine for many, many years, where I wrote a lot about fashion. And of the reasons I ended up writing this book about wellness was this really demented thing that I started to notice, which is that our health was being sold to us using a lot of the same marketing techniques and methods and language as the luxury industry used to sell fashion. Our health was being treated like a handbag, basically, like a really expensive leather. Good. And what would that mean for a society to treat health like a luxury rather than a right? And when I started the book, it was sort of social satire, social commentary, but it really became upsetting because Covid happened, and we had this very unavoidable fact, which was who got sick and who died from COVID and who didn't. And it was just blaring, look what happens when you treat health like a luxury consumer good rather than a basic, fundamental human right. And who gets sick and who dies and who doesn't becomes glaringly obvious and really upsetting and really dangerous. So I think, you know, that's a sort of huge driver of what this book is about.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you were a fashion editor. I mean, fashion editor in the tents. You know, I don't know if you got front row. Did you get front row?

[Amy LaRocca]

Yeah, yeah. Fashion director of New York magazine. Like, you know, they take that for real. They take it for real.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. Came up with the idea for the cut.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yeah, I think you did participate. Participated. I wouldn't want to.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay, participate. But was fundamental to the beginning of the cut. So fashion, which you covered a lot. Fashion, was about buying this blouse and what handbag and what kind of aspirational life you would live if you had these things. How much better could your life be? And at some point, you start noticing that the people that you've been to, like, London and Paris with covering these shows, are starting to, I guess, pivot, you could say, or drop out even, maybe. And, okay, I'm gonna become a person who has a wellness spa. I'm gonna focus on colonics. Yeah, exactly.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yeah, there's a lot of that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But was that just getting older, or was that the culture actually shifting?

[Amy LaRocca]

Well, there are a lot of things at work. My time in the fashion industry really coincides with the rise of the digital age, obviously. So when I first started, really, the people in those fashion shows were the only people who could see what was going on in that room. And you know what? Everyone liked that, right? It was really private. It was really exclusive. And that lent everything a certain buzz. Over the course of my time in the fashion industry, that stopped being the case. You could stream a Prada show at the same time that it was happening, and you could live watch it anywhere in the world, like, sitting on your couch in your bathrobe. Like, it was no longer as private, exclusive, secret as it used to be. You could order those clothes. You didn't have to be in a major city. You could just log on, get your Valentino.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So they didn't need access. They didn't need.

[Amy LaRocca]

You didn't have any special access, really. Or if you had any, it was so much less than it used to be. And fashion started feeling more Democratic, more accessible. So the people who are used to having that, that access, we're sort of searching around for something less accessible to feel cool. And I always think about this interview that Amanda Chantal Bacon, who's the queen of Moon juice, gave to Elle magazine and she was describing her morning routine and it's baffling. It involves drinking like ground up pearl dust out of a hand pounded copper cup. And I don't even know how to pronounce to this day. And I wrote a book about wellness, like 50% of the things she consumed before, like 11am and it was like, this is a new thing. This is a new frontier for aspirations.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right. For the Devil Wears Prada gang is now finding.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yeah. And it was like all these like, oh, do you go to Dr. Pasler on 12th Street? And oh, yes, you do, because I can see you've got that goat cheese log that you're like eating with a spoon. So it was like, it was like suddenly, like, not suddenly. Look, fashion people were always on a diet. Fashion people were always exercising. I don't need to explain that one. But wellness and like my organs or my whatever. It became a new frontier for exclusivity, for fetishistic.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

And then, you know, look, fashion and beauty are super connected. And the beauty industry was sort of responding to the wave of hashtag feminism that was happening online. And it was much easier if you were trying to sell beauty products to slap the word we and say this is about empowering you or this is about self care.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's interesting because it feels like in some ways, fashion and beauty, they didn't really switch places, but they became almost equivalent in a way. Whereas fashion used to be on such a different level than your moisturizer or this particular shampoo that's like organic with all these no phalates or whatever.

[Amy LaRocca]

When you rebrand beauty as wellness, as self care, it definitely elevates beauty.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right. It makes it a moral situation and not just, oh, you want a dime store lipstick because you're a silly little girl.

[Amy LaRocca]

Right.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You're shallow. Exactly.

[Podcast Host/Ad Reader]

Around the holiday season, I have so much to do. I do not want to be on the phone, on hold dealing with some issue at the bank. Chime isn't just another banking app. They unlock smarter banking for everyday people with products like MyPay, which gives you access to up to $500 of your paycheck anytime. It's also rated stars by USA Today for customer service. So you can talk to real humans 24 7. If I could talk to my younger self. I would tell her to get the new Chime card. It's a great and safe way to build credit history with your own money and get rewarded just like with a credit card. Join the millions who are already banking fee free today. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to chime.cominfamous that's chime.cominfamous Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services the Secure Chime Visa credit card and my K line of credit provided by the Banquet Bank NA or Stride Bank NA. My pay eligibility requirement apply and credit limit ranges 20 to $500. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See chime.com feesinfo advertise annual percentage yield with Chime+ status only. Otherwise 1% APY + no minimum balance required. Chime Card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details and applicable terms.

[Ad Voice]

This time of year can be tough. The holidays are near and they're supposed to feel joyful, but for so many they bring stress around. Food, weight and body image. Add in all the talk about weight loss medications and it can feel overwhelming to know what's best for you. That's why hers is here to support your journey so you can feel your best. Weight loss by hers is realistic, not restrictive. Hers provides access to affordable weight loss plans built around oral medication kits and GLP1 injectable options with oral medication kits starting at just $69 per month with a 10 month plan when paid up front in full. Whether you want to lose weight, grow thicker, fuller hair or find relief for anxiety, hers has you covered. Visit forhers.cominfamous to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you that's f o r h E-R-S.cominfamous fourhers.com infamous weight loss by hers is not available everywhere. Compounded drug products are not approved or evaluated for safety, effectiveness or quality by the fda. Prescription required. See website for full details, important safety information and restrictions. Actual price depends on product and plan purchased.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

This is going on and you've got your place in fashion and you're noticing all these trends and you have wonderful little daughter and then you get pregnant with a second daughter. And I mean I'll never forget going into your office in New York magazine and you always had many flowers because people would fashion people like to send each other flowers when they write nice things about each other. And and you told me that your daughter was very sick, that your second daughter that you had had an Emergency at the hospital.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yes. She was extremely, extremely sick when she was born. And part of the experience of becoming a mother with my first daughter who wasn't sick, I got the edges of it, but I didn't really, really have the experiences until I became the mother of a sick child, who, by the way, is very well now.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Amy LaRocca]

But the kind of blame game that goes on in motherhood when something goes wrong, and the way that people look at the mother of a sick child, like, well, what did you do? What's wrong with you?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did you really feel that way?

[Amy LaRocca]

Oh, you didn't feel.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It was just a. Because my understanding was that she had a birth defect that was a fluke.

[Amy LaRocca]

It was an absolute fluke. And I sat there with the doctors who said, this is a lightning strike. We don't know what causes this. And it's, you know, one in a bazillion, really. They only know of 50 cases of it. And I still felt that, you know, it was a little bit of like, oh, are you not eating organic? Oh, right.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You say, like, did I have too many Chicken McNuggets? Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

Like, I really wanted junk food when I was pregnant, and I wanted McDonald's. And thinking, like, this is my fault. You know, this is like, I must have done something. I must have. And I really felt like, you know, I had fashion friends who would send me mood boards for motherhood. Like, it's gonna look like me. Like, pictures of, like, sort of mothers.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Galloping through, like, a cornfield within, like, a prairie door.

[Amy LaRocca]

Like, no plastic toys, you know, So I definitely.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You were ready for it to be another stage of aspiration in some ways.

[Amy LaRocca]

Aspiration? Motherhood. I was supposed to be. And I'd had a really hard time breastfeeding my first daughter. And I remember being out with a, you know, sort of glamorous stylist that I was friends with, and she was talking about how disgusting it was to hold a baby that was bottle fed and formula fed. She was like, you can smell it, and they're heavy, and they smell disgusting. This was like.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And you were like, I am one of those people.

[Amy LaRocca]

I was just like, wow, does my baby smell disgusting? I don't think so. I think my baby smells great. But maybe it's, like, revolting everybody, because, you know, so there's just all this pressure that women and the world place on each other all the time. And I really felt it when I had a sick child and I would walk around my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and she didn't eat by mouth until she was six months old, and I would have, like, this backpack that had her feeding apparatus on it, and it connected to her stomach. And, you know, I would walk around and everything's made of plastic, right? Like, all medical apparatuses are made of plastic. And I don't know if that plastic has phthalates in it or what is in it, because it comes from the medical supply company. And I'm not gonna be like, is this working? Like, you know, like, it's not available and, like, you know, and breast is best. Whatever. Like, my kid didn't eat by mouth until she was over six months old, and it was like, everything was medicalized. And I would walk around Brooklyn with this, like, backpack on that had, like, her milk pump that was going into her G tube, and she'd be in the front because, like, it was the only way she could not vomit up the milk that was going into the G tube. And I would just take these walks for her feedings, and I just would see all these other mothers with their, like, strollers and their organic blankets and their. And just be like, I am failing. And I think that is something that women feel so consistently across so many. I mean, motherhood is such a. You know, it's a biggie, right?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

Where we really feel these things very, very, very deeply. And I think those kind of feelings of, I'm doing this wrong, I'm failing at this, are very common for women.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, absolutely. And then, you know, industry steps in to take advantage of that.

[Amy LaRocca]

There's some stuff you could buy to fix it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right. I mean, I am, like, I'm sure a lot of people listening to this. I've read the microplastics. News breaks with horror. And, you know, oh, my God, Are the. And I still think it now. Should I put in my dishwasher? They have plastic.

[Amy LaRocca]

They have plastic. And I think about that now, and it's like, my kid is. She's turning 13. She's amazing. She has no, like, health problems. And I like, some part, like, in the middle of the night, I'll wake up and I'll think about her feeding apparatus from when she was an infant.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And think, like, is this gonna give her cancer down the road or what exactly did I expose her to talk about microplastics. But you had to choice.

[Amy LaRocca]

But I think a lot of people have equivalent experiences. There's a lot of times where choice is taken away from us. Whether or not you live in an area where your water was contaminated, you didn't know it, or the air. I mean, remember the air came from Canada and turned orange. What if it didn't turn orange? Would we have known? You know, like, how often is it just not color coded for us? And I think that that's another place where wellness really steps in is when we're experiencing that vulnerability. Like when you said, but you had no choice. It's like, okay, well, then let me find all of the things where I do have control. And I think that's where the industry really finds us. And we find, like, that's where we really meet. Right? Is like, okay, so there's this, this tremendous place, huge places, most places where we actually don't have any control over these choices. So let me find the areas where I can soothe myself with a sensation that I do.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right. It's very connected to your desire to protect. Right. Whether it's protect yourself, the individual or protect your family. It's like almost like you want to hide these kids under a hoop skirt or something from the pollution in your neighborhood. You know, I happen to live in a very polluted neighborhood. Right.

[Amy LaRocca]

So probably when you're in the grocery store, you're like, ooh, organic.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Close your eyes, exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

[Amy LaRocca]

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered from free from 1-800-contacts.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.

[Amy LaRocca]

And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, sorry.

[Amy LaRocca]

Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.

[Podcast Host/Ad Reader]

Meet the computer you can talk to with Copilot on Windows working, creating and collaborating is as easy as talking. Got writer's block? Share your screen with Copilot Vision. Do help spark inspiration and use Copilot voice to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas. Or maybe you need some tech help. With Copilot Vision, Copilot sees what you see. Let copilot talk you through step by step guidance so you can master new apps, games and skills faster. Try [e-mail] copilot.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I remember at one point when you were writing this book and I was like, what should I do to improve my health? And you were like, drink water. Like, that's it.

[Amy LaRocca]

Just that's it. And sleep. And go to sleep. Yeah, I mean, I think like, what, What? I really, really, really come away from this book believing because everyone asked me that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right?

[Amy LaRocca]

Like, everyone, everyone asked me that still asks me that, like, what? You know, okay, so what do I have to do? Fundamental health is like, pretty basic. And all these, like little wellness sprinkles that we're putting on top of it are like really just sprinkles. If you have access to good food and water and sleep, you are 99% of the way home.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

See, but that's insane. It's like a $20 trillion.

[Amy LaRocca]

I mean, I. Every time I do an interview, I'm like, oh, I should Google how much it's worth today, because it's probably worth more than it was the last time I did an interview.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It took you a long time to write this book. But the fact is this just got bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger and bigger.

[Amy LaRocca]

And that's also why it kept getting harder. Cause I'd be like, oh, wait, no, I thought I was done with my draft, but this huge thing just launched or Ozempic just happened, or we should talk about that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Because it does seem to me like you could make an argument that we're almost coming out of this phase because we're going into a phase, at least at the sort of 1% level where people are injecting themselves with these.

[Amy LaRocca]

It's not even 1%. Like the percentage of people who are on the GLP1s is. Is really, really, really high, is it? It is really high. And it's higher than the percentage of people who have obesity or diabetes. So it's obviously being used for cosmetic purposes at a pretty high rate. And, you know, one thing I'd always sort of been interested in covering fashion was that there were always these tiny, like, pokes, we'll call them, at Body Positivity, right, Where there'd be like one model, two models who were on the runways, or they'd say, like, oh, it's really changing and we like an athletic body this year or whatever. And you'd be like, week, week, week. I'd say in the two years before Ozempic came on the market was the biggest swing I'd ever seen in 20 years in the fashion industry towards more inclusive sizing in high end online retail on the runways, which is to say is still quite small. But it was the biggest move in that direction that I'd seen in 20 years. And that's basically disappeared since.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You mean like Fenty Victoria's Secret? The way that they were starting.

[Amy LaRocca]

Not Fenty Victoria's Secret. I'm talking about Valentino. So.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So it was moving.

[Amy LaRocca]

It was moving. It was moving. And retailers like Net A Porter or my Teresa or, you know, matches Rip. But they were including models on their retail sites that were maybe an 8. So again, very small steps, but that's all over.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay.

[Amy LaRocca]

And that happened with Ozempic. But what's interesting about Ozempic is that people on Ozempic are criticized as aggressively as overweight people, if not more so. It's like it's an unattractive thin. It's a sort of morally inferior thin.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right.

[Amy LaRocca]

Like, this idea of there's a kind of pure way to be thin. And like, this is still grotesque. Like it's chemical. It's like there's still this idea of like suffering has to kind of be attached to it or it's inferior.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You write in your book about this idea of glow. Like, what is glow? You say it's radiance, it's health, the wellness look. Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

But it's basically, it's youth. Right? Like, I mean, that's the thing is it's youth. And so this is what I was talking about earlier when I was talking about, like, slap the word wellness onto it and you suddenly have a moral case for your beauty product. And it's like, if we're not gonna say youth, we're gonna. So it's just like trying to make a moral excuse for your beauty product, which is just telling women that they should spend money and be younger.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right. But isn't that all what it is? I mean, you have a stat in your book that in the 1950s, only about 7% of American women color their hair.

[Amy LaRocca]

Isn't that crazy?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Clairol then ran an ad for hair dye that said, how long has it been since your husband asked you out to dinner?

[Amy LaRocca]

I know your husband asked you out to dinner.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So now the number of American women in surveys who say that they color their hair is 70%.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yeah, I know. It's crazy, right? I mean, even if you look at what a 50 year old woman was expected to look like in the 50s and what we're expected to look like now, it's just berserk. Right?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right. Yeah. There's all those memes of like the.

[Amy LaRocca]

Golden Girls and like people were 44.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And you're just like what they were. I guess that's where I get really hung up. Because if all of this stuff is just basically to.

[Amy LaRocca]

It's all the same thing.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. If you're just chasing youth, which is a losing game because you're getting older, it's not gonna work. I don't want to say, then why even try? But there Is something to be said about being casual. There is something to be said about being. Pursuing a life where you're curious, where you don't take things so seriously and just throw all these moisturizers and everything else into the trash. Because if it's really all about looking younger, I am sure we have a better way to do it than scrutinizing our faces in like close up mirrors and being like, why are my pores so big?

[Amy LaRocca]

Well, I mean, sometimes you'll meet a woman and she has so carefully assembled herself and she's so carefully taken every inch of this advice and what she's lost in the process is assertive youthfulness.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right, Right. Because everything is so tweaked and perfect that no, you look great. But if, you know, if the spark goes out of your eyes in the process, then what was the point?

[Amy LaRocca]

I feel very like, whatever gets you through the night. It's not easy out there. You know, you feel really criticized, you feel really judged all the time. It's really hard. And if a facelift is gonna make it easier for you to like, go forth, get the fucking facelift.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay, well, I just wanna talk though about. I've seen these pictures of Kris Jenner. Does she really look like this?

[Amy LaRocca]

She looks like. I've never seen her in 25, but like, I don't know.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right. I guess. I mean, there's no way that she has somebody walking around with like a Hollywood light next to her at all times. So she looks incredible. So we have to trust these photos that we're seeing.

[Amy LaRocca]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is there something going on with facelifts where they're really different? If you're.

[Amy LaRocca]

I read that article in the Times.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And you get, you're able to get.

[Amy LaRocca]

I always feel like if I did it though, I'd get like the one that went wrong and then I would just like be like racked with regret.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I just think it's the treadmill thing. I mean, you say at the end you wrote this book for your daughter.

[Amy LaRocca]

Very much so.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And part of why you did it is because you don't want them to be on the self improvement treadmill. And I really feel that, like, you know, I feel like I'm gonna look back at my life and be like, oh, my God, how much time did we waste?

[Amy LaRocca]

Like, how much time did we waste feeling like we didn't look good enough or we just wasted so much time feeling like we fell short. Right. Feeling like. And not fell short, like on the things that matter. Right. Like, not fell short of, like our Professional potential, our creative potential, our potential to let the people in our lives know how much we love them or like the things that actually matter.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right.

[Amy LaRocca]

But that we fell short on like maintaining our collagen or something. Right. Like, you know what I mean? Those kinds of things. Or we didn't enjoy doing things because we didn't like the way we looked while we were doing them. You know, luckily the like mad Sephora craze has died down with my girls. But I mean, I was really serious. It was pretty serious, intense there for a minute. And I really would just be in Sephora with them as they were like looking at these products and I would actually. I wanted to weep. It just broke my heart like that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

They know what this acid does to your face because they watched it on TikTok and. Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

And that even like it happened when they were so young that I don't think they really attached it to something. But the idea that it could grow up into a self loathing that they would spend their lives trying to undo, it just broke me.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, what's the difference though, from when we were kids and we would get Seventeen magazine, we wanted to. I don't think there is a difference.

[Amy LaRocca]

I felt terrible. I mean, I went through a lot of teenage feeling really, really, really terrible. I mean, I remember thinking that who was that model from Miami who got in the car? Nikki Taylor.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

And I remember thinking that like somehow it was a failure of mine to work harder, that I didn't have a longer tibia like Nikki Taylor, you know, like five, four. That's all I've got. Those magazines made me think that there was like something I could do to achieve that. But like, you know, she's not gonna be a 5 foot 4 Italian Jew from New York, right?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, I spent a lot of my teenage years with a sweatshirt wrapped around my waist. Cause I was embarrassed that my butt was too big. That's what I did.

[Amy LaRocca]

And lo and behold, I found out butts were good. I didn't know, but that's what I mean. Like, I don't want our daughters wearing a sweatshirt around the waist unless they want to wear a sweatshirt around their waist.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right, exactly. And it feels so meaningless because it's trends, Right. It's random trends being made by people. Maybe like you made by people like me.

[Amy LaRocca]

Right.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So, you know, we started this by saying. I was saying that I'm thinking about wellness a lot because the things that I'm looking to buy for members of my family or people in my life they do all strike me as things that are sort of wellness oriented. So tell me, like, candles and soaps and I guess things that I before would just be like, okay, I'm gonna buy this little makeup case. But now it's like a makeup case filled with like, an eye mask that will, like, help you have restorative sleep. It just seems like every thing I go to buy is something about trying to help somebody else to relax. Should I be buying them these things?

[Amy LaRocca]

Well, does it feel. I mean, again, I'm very, like, whatever gets you through the night. How much of them do you use?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I like candles. I like eye masks. I like some sort of a moisturizing balm. Moisturizing balm with a little tint. So you're saying look at the things you actually use and buy those for other people and say, I think you like this because I like it.

[Amy LaRocca]

I like it. Like, I really like really good bar soap. And it makes the shower bathroom smell nice. Like, you know, great. Like, I can see the purpose and the use of this. What you don't want is that stuff that just gathers up in your house and just like, sort of yells at you from the corner or like the sort of gadgets or the whatever it is that was supposed to improve you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What's also interesting about the way you wrap up the book is to acknowledge that part of this stuff. Yes, the wellness industry has figured out how to twin hypochondria and consumerism. That is definitely true. But there is also, contrary to what we were saying before about how we don't want our girls to be on a treadmill of self improvement, there's also some optimism, like, hey, maybe this is a way to get through the day is to just buy this thing or think about this thing, or maybe I will make my own tea. Maybe I will dry these tea leaves and, and feel good when the steam is coming up in my face and feel. It's a moment, you know, Tm a moment for me.

[Amy LaRocca]

Totally. No, I. I fully feel that way. I always think of it as like a tightrope. Right. Like, on this side of the tightrope is things in the beauty, wellness world that make me feel good. And on this side, side of the tightrope is when beauty and wellness makes me feel really bad about myself. And it's like, I don't always realize when I've tipped off of it and like, in which direction.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Amy LaRocca]

And it requires kind of consciousness and a kind of awareness to be like, I've tipped over into, like, beauty and wellness making me feel like shit. Like you're trying and you're trying and you're not getting there and like, oh, this is quite nice. And it's like you don't always realize when you've right gone over the line. So it's kind of just trying to.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Be like keeping that in mind a.

[Amy LaRocca]

Little bit in mind. Is this making me feel better about myself or worse?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Thank you so much, Amy, for being on. Everybody should pick up a copy of this excellent book, how to be Navigating our self Care Epidemic one Dubious Cure at a time. Thanks everybody for for listening to that episode. And we will be on vacation next week, but we will be back the following week with a rerun of our Gwyneth Paltrow skiing episode, which we think would be very fun to listen to over the holidays. After that we will have Amy o' Dell, who you may recognize from our Tory Burch episode. She was one of the journalists who talked on this that she's spoken on our Megan Markle episode. She's going to come back and talk about Gwenna as well. So we hope everybody is able to get a bit of a vacation coming up and we will see you all in the new year.

[Amy LaRocca]

Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.

[Podcast Host/Ad Reader]

Is that guy with the binoculars watching you?

[Ad Voice]

Us?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Cut the camera. They see us.

[Amy LaRocca]

Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Liberty Liberty, Liberty Liberty Savings.

[Podcast Host/Ad Reader]

Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.