Comedian Alice Fraser wants to find out what wellness really means and why it’s so big right now. What is it about the modern world that makes the concept of wellness so appealing?

According to Sarah Greenidge, who started a company to uphold the credibility of the wellness industry, we have all become more aware of the imbalance in our work-life balance: we’re stressed, we’re tired, so we look to wellness to feel better. Something that Brigid Schulte, the writer of the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time, agrees with. But Greenidge point out that the wellness industry is capitalising on how much we yearn to live a better life. This doesn’t sit well with Alice. She will start her journey to understand wellness beyond the industry in the next episode by looking at the beginnings of the wellness movement in the 70s.

Alice Fraser meets wellness influencer and yoga teacher Julie Montegu at a high-end yoga studio in Chelsea, London. She’s going to dive into the history of wellness in this episode, but first she wants to understand what it’s like to promote wellness today.

Alice, who is going to take Julie’s class, talks to Julie about her day-to-day routine and realises Julie is extremely busy, despite promoting yoga and wellness. So how closely is wellness today related to the beginnings of the movement? Alice digs up three of the fathers of the wellness movement to find out how it all started.

Alice takes a closer look at the trillion-dollar Wellness Industry. Ex-wellness influencer Pixie Turner talks about the turning point in her journey through wellness and explains what made her take a closer look at the science behind some wellness claims. Sarah Greenidge, an independent auditor, gives us her take on what’s behind the growth of the wellness industry and gives us some pointers on how to spot pseudoscience as a news consumer.