Rude News 009 - health is wealth
green smoothies and flat asses in yoga pants
As the year 2025 begins, we witness the same mini-trends emerge as they do every year: Dry January, fresh starts, and a renewed commitment to the gym. But let’s take a closer look - what is behind this perpetual New Year, New Me attitude? Has anything about it evolved, or are we simply cycling through the same patterns with slight variations?
Downward facing Dog
One noticeable shift is that health trends are no longer confined to the first few months of the year. The rise of Pilates, Lagree, and yoga classes, along with green juices and Erewhon smoothies - now backed by celebrities like Hailey Bieber - has transformed clean eating and exercise into a year-round lifestyle rather than a seasonal resolution. We go through the motions annually: signing up for gym memberships, chasing the ideal bikini body, setting new rules we promise to follow, and shopping for clothes that we hope will soon fit our new selves. But at the core of these efforts lies a deeper, more persistent ideal.
Because ultimately, all of this circles back to one thing: thinness. Let’s be honest - being thin was never out of fashion. While social media and beauty industries briefly pushed a more inclusive all bodies are beautiful narrative, the reality remains unchanged. Perhaps society has become slightly more accepting of different body types - at least on the surface - but the ideal body? It’s still, now more than ever, skinny.
And maintaining skinny requires relentless effort. If you’re not naturally lean - something only a few people actually are - being and staying skinny demands hours and hours of commitment each week. You have to eat right but still stay "healthy," so not not eat but also not eat too much. You have to watch your vitamin intake, your skin’s health, your hair, etc.
What helps, obviously, is exercise. A Pilates class, a ClassPass or Wellpass subscription, eats up a lot of your monthly income. Even something as simple as a gym membership isn’t cheap. And then you have to have the time to actually go. All of that adds up to a privilege that not everyone has access to.
Too blessed to be stressed
And then there’s stress - thinness’ biggest enemy in Western culture. It ages you drastically, makes you look puffy, gain weight, and look tired. Pilates and yoga help with stress. Sleeping and eating healthy do too. If you have the time to do some research, you might start taking ashwaghanda, coenzyme Q10, start microneedeling your face, which in order for it to actually do anything you have to do regularly, so that’s another 150-200€ a month gone.
In particular, regular sleep schedules play a crucial role. Suddenly, sleep becomes a prerequisite for both health and looking good. And so we see a shift: bed rotting is the new thing. Alcohol is the enemy, while kombucha aperitifs flood Instagram stories of private dinner parties. What was once an expression of privilege ten years ago - being on the guest list of an exclusive club, going to afterparties, staying up as long as you wanted because you didn’t have to work the next day - has been replaced by 7 AM gym check-ins and green juices lined up next to oat matcha lattes at some overpriced café with a name as obscure as its customers.
Also running clubs? Theres nothing more exposing to me than going to a running club organised by Adidas or whoever and then not performing at the same level as the art director of Brand XYZ, who’s just behind me.
But it’s not about happiness: That’s a separate conversation - because today, we’re not talking about well-being, but about the modern expression of wealth.
So, let’s get into it: Being healthy - and performing health - has become a status symbol. It’s a front for yet another image-driven thinness trend. This isn’t about longevity or well-being; it’s about optics. Health is simply the newest aesthetic language for wealth.
It started long before the first spirulina drink, but for me, that’s when the shift became obvious. What began with superfoods and supplements has now evolved into sleep-tracking rings, morning ice baths, and collagen-infused everything. The aesthetic may have changed, but the underlying message remains the same: discipline is luxury.
The Mis-En-Place
What’s being presented as discipline is really just another iteration of the same tired narrative: If you just work hard enough, success will follow. Which I hope by now we all know isn’t “it”. This isn’t about grit or perseverance in the traditional sense - it’s about curating a lifestyle that looks disciplined. “Health” in this context isn’t simply waking up early and going for a run before work. It’s waking up, taking your supplements with a juice from your 300€ juicer, downing a ginger shot, and slipping into a coordinated set from Brand XYZ before heading to your workout. It’s a performance, a system. And like any system, it requires the right setup - the mise en place.
The careful arrangement of elements - the collagen-infused coffee, the Enzymes, Supplements, the glucose-stabilizing morning walk - is what makes the illusion complete. The discipline itself isn’t the goal; it’s the product. Health has been rebranded as an aesthetic, a mindset you can buy into. It’s just another layer of the self-optimization industrial complex, feeding itself in an endless loop of commodification.
The “Laptop-Ass”
Another thing that it serves, that might be a bit too much for today - so lets just really quickly think about it: As we’ve adapted our work and lifestyle to this screen-time saga, this 13-inch laptop world, our bodies have changed with it. Shoulders slouch forward, backs round, and - sorry to say it - our asses are disappearing. The modern work environment has physically reshaped us, and in response, we gaslight each other into believing there’s a “healthy” way out of this bodily dilapidation. So maybe this latest health wave isn’t just an excuse for skinny. Maybe it’s a necessary reaction to what endless hours at a desk have done to us. Maybe soon, running clubs and gym memberships will replace the fruit bowls and ping-pong tables that brands once dangled as perks.
And that brings us back to health is wealth. It’s about maintaining a body that signals wealth, status, and, most importantly, thinness. Because at the end of the day, the equation hasn’t changed: being thin is still the ultimate currency. The rules have just been rebranded - clean eating instead of or as a front for dieting, wellness instead of weight loss, discipline instead of deprivation. It’s rebranding and it’s making us think, we’re actually doing good to our bodies.
Nailed it.