Wellness isn’t well when the industry excludes the cultures it borrows from
By Ruhee Meghani
Gatekeeping and appropriation run rife in an industry that too often fails to acknowledge its origins in ancient cultural practices, but it doesn’t have to be this way, writes Yoga teacher Ruhee Meghani.
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When you picture wellness, or search ‘Yoga’ online, what comes to mind? A green smoothie in a mason jar? A perfectly bent body in Bakasana (crow pose) on a beach at sunrise?
If so, you’re not alone. The wellness industry, projected to hit seven trillion dollars globally by 2025, has built an empire out of selling the idea of balance. But we forget one key factor: the industry often excludes the very cultures it borrows from, and the bodies it claims to care about.
As a South Asian Australian Yoga teacher who calls Melbourne home, I’ve felt this exclusion and the impact it has on community wellbeing. And frankly, it’s time for a little (loving) rant.
When wellness becomes gatekeeping
I grew up in Mumbai practicing Yoga, where my teachers focused not only on asanas (postures), but on concepts grounded in philosophy and the practice of daily rituals like Pranayama (re-branded as ‘breathwork’ in the West). When I moved to Melbourne, I was in for a rude shock. In the Yoga studios here, the practice was nothing like I’d learned.
Everything seemed… choreographed. Perfect interiors, expensive clothing & accessories, and a particular type of teacher: slim, white, cisgender women who could float into handstands like gravity didn’t exist.
Suddenly, I was made to feel like I didn’t belong in the very practice my culture birthed. My South Asian body & identity didn’t seem to fit the mould of what Yoga looked like in Australia - a purely physical form of exercise and indicator of wealth.
This isn’t just my story. Many practitioners of colour, neurodiverse, queer communities, disabled folks, and people in larger bodies encounter the same gatekeeping. The unspoken rule seems to be: wellness is for you, but only if you look the part.
Cultural appropriation in leggings
Let’s talk about the elephant in the (essential-oil-scented) room: cultural appropriation. Yoga, Ayurveda, meditation, Chinese medicine, practices with thousands of years of history in the East, have been repackaged for Western audiences, often stripped of context and commodified for profit.
Take Sanskrit terms. Words like namaste are tossed around in boutique studios without much understanding of what they actually mean. Philosophical teachings, which emphasise community, discipline, and humility, are often ignored in favour of ‘Yoga sculpt’ or ‘Vino & Vinyasa’.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing inherently bad about a powerful vinyasa class. But when the practice is reduced to calorie burning and Instagram-worthy shapes, we lose the depth, and we erase the cultures that gave us these tools in the first place.
Forgotten bodies, forgotten needs
Beyond race and culture, the wellness world forgets certain bodies altogether. Living with endometriosis, I’ve often felt alienated in spaces that assume a baseline of energy, flexibility, or mobility. Wellness is rarely designed for chronic illness, disability, or neurodivergence.
Exclusion in wellness spaces doesn’t just bruise feelings of belonging—it has real consequences. When people are priced out, misrepresented, or made to feel like their bodies and cultures don’t belong, they’re less likely to engage with practices that could genuinely support their health. For marginalised groups, this compounds existing inequities: stress levels rise, mental health suffers, and community trust in wellness systems erodes.
The irony is painful—an industry built on the promise of wellbeing ends up reinforcing the very barriers that harm people’s wellbeing in the first place. True wellness can’t exist if it only serves a narrow slice of society; it has to include everyone, or it isn’t wellness at all - it’s just a plain pursuit of self-improvement.
Even the price tag is exclusionary. $40 yoga classes, $20 smoothies, $8000 wellness retreats—who exactly are these experiences for? Spoiler: not the communities that most need accessible care.
The rise of longevity clubs—where the ultra-wealthy with IV drips track their biomarkers like it’s a competitive sport—might look futuristic, but it’s really just old-school exclusivity in expensive beige pants. When wellbeing becomes a luxury subscription, it warps the idea that health is collective and attainable, turning it into yet another status symbol. If the future of ‘wellness’ is gated behind biometric scanners and platinum cards, we’ve completely missed the point.
Can we please stop trying to win wellbeing? Wellbeing isn’t about who can hold crow pose longest. It’s about collective care—affordable, inclusive systems that honour the many ways people live in their bodies. And yes, sometimes that looks less like a Pinterest board and more like a community potluck with homemade hummus.
So, what do we do with all this guilt & privilege?
The good news? Wellness doesn’t have to stay this way. Here’s what a shift could look like:
Be an ally & challenge the status quo. Advocate for inclusive & accessible spaces & services. Challenge your own assumptions of wellness (e.g, I’m not flexible enough to do Yoga)
Re-center origins. Learn about and acknowledge the cultural roots of the practices you teach & practice. This doesn’t mean going full professor mode, but a little context goes a long way.
Redefine representation. Wellness spaces should look like the communities they claim to serve: diverse, messy, real. Not just thin, bendy, Instagram-able bodies.
Focus on access. Offer sliding-scale classes, community-centered programming, and trauma-informed options that welcome those often left out.
Choose collective care over aesthetics. True wellness isn’t about how it looks on the outside; it’s about how supported we feel together.
The Summer I Realised Wellness Needs a Rebrand
There was a moment, standing in a Melbourne Yoga studio surrounded by perfect crow poses, when I thought: Maybe I don’t belong here. It felt a little like the wellness-world version of The Summer I Turned Pretty - except in my case, it was The Summer I Turned Out-of-Place.
But here’s what I know now: wellness isn’t a commodity for the few & elite. It’s a right for all of us. It should look like community care, messy laughter, showing up with our imperfect bodies, our cultural lineages, and our stubborn commitment to keep everyone at the table.
Everyone deserves to be well. AND, being well looks different for everyone. Our world hasn’t been designed to make wellbeing equitable. And this is why, friends, we need to redefine what wellbeing ‘looks like’.
My wish is for us to stop chasing perfection and start building collective, inclusive wellbeing that actually nourishes us. Because true wellness isn’t about exclusion. It’s about belonging.
About the author
Ruhee Meghani
Known as a "firecracker with purpose", Ruhee is the founder of Allied Collective and a Yoga teacher with over 13 years of experience - she has more than 900 hours of foundational teacher training under her belt. Born & raised in Mumbai, India, Ruhee’s love for Yoga developed at an early age when accompanying her mother to Yoga classes. She specialises in facilitating workplace wellbeing training & workshops, transforming over 53 companies like Nike & Arup; boosting retention, leadership, and wellbeing for impact.
Ruhee advocates for multicultural communities and teaches Diploma of Business - all while championing for equitable wellbeing and inclusive design. To learn more about Ruhee’s work, you can find her on LinkedIn or on Instagram at @alliedcollective.
Loved this whole piece but particularly the inclusion of actions we can take to make wellness more inclusive! Thank you Ruhee <3
Completely agree with all of the above! And yet… I confess I love my nice leggings and green juice 😝 Also - “vino and vinyasa” 🤣 Is that really a thing???