Could your obsession with being healthy have become unhealthy?

Healthy living habits are undoubtedly one of the most popular topics of recent years with the expanding influence of wellness and wellbeing. From gluten-free diets to intuitive eating, from home-based exercises to nutritional supplements, from matcha teas to collagen powders, from skin care to weight loss, from food to sports, healthy choices are at the forefront in almost every field.

With YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and celebrities and influencers sharing their own healthy living routines or good living habits, it is impossible not to see that a healthy living trend has begun that has affected almost the whole world.

Of course, it is important to move regularly and make healthy food choices, but as with everything else, too many habits are harmful. If you force your body to do sports, miss the flow of your life while trying to eat healthy, or put aside feeling good and put yourself in certain rules, you may have adopted an unhealthy lifestyle while trying to be healthy, or even worse, you may have made being healthy an obsession.

Wellness and wellbeing are two concepts that everyone has been talking about lately, and they play an active role in determining the trends of brands from cosmetics to fashion.

While these two important concepts focus solely on shaping wellbeing through more sustainable habits, unfortunately, they are sometimes misrepresented as such and can become less supportive of holistic health.

For example, a diet that is more in vogue can be portrayed as a trendy habit, or a certain type of exercise can be portrayed as 'good'.

However, wellness does not mean that any trendy good living habit should be an absolute truth in everyone's life. It is about everyone doing what is good for them, as much as it is good for them. Because, when it comes to individual well-being, there is no single recipe that works for everyone.

Yes, a gluten-free diet can be a healthy lifestyle, especially for people with gluten intolerance, but that doesn't mean that everyone should eat gluten-free. Or that meditation is good for both body and mind, but not everyone has to enjoy this practice. In short, if we are to talk about true 'wellness', it should include good life practices that one enjoys as much as they support holistic health.

But unfortunately, some of the habits that are rapidly becoming trends in the modern world and the undeniable manipulative aspect of social media can negatively affect well-being and healthy living practices, causing people to adopt an obsession rather than focusing on gaining healthy habits that are good for them.

Finally, it is of course important to be concerned about our health and to make efforts to improve it, but there is little point if these efforts get in the way of living to the fullest. Don't be a victim of books, famous TV shows, the perception of beauty imposed by social media or the indispensable routines of celebrities.

Move regularly, eat a balanced diet based on fruits and vegetables as much as possible, but don't run like the bogeyman until you run out of sugar and fat, or until you sweat blood and can't move your arms. Try to enjoy yourself and let your habits rule you, not your habits rule you.