‘Glow from the inside out’: Deliciously Ella and the politics of ‘healthy eating’

Abstract

This article examines the branded persona of Ella Mills, founder of the multi-platform, multi-product and multi-million pound food brand Deliciously Ella. It begins from the premise that Mills represents a new kind of cultural intermediary: that of the wellness entrepreneur. Through a discourse analysis of Mills’ own media productions alongside news and magazine features about the entrepreneur, I consider how ‘healthy eating’ is being sold to young women as a means to realise physical and financial empowerment. Commercial entrepreneurship is made to function in tandem with health entrepreneurship, as Mills makes it her business to model a healthy lifestyle and enjoins others to follow this example. The article further examines how the Deliciously Ella narrative perpetuates already dominant understandings of health as a private good and personal responsibility through its emphasis on healing and recovery through food. Relating this analysis to recent debates about the shifting terrain of postfeminism in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, I argue that the spotlighting of Mills elevates self-care as a gendered imperative while obfuscating the classed and racialised privileges that attend this.

Feminised concern or feminist care? Reclaiming gender normativities in zero waste living

“…These are branded on the blogs, often with their promoters receiving a small commission on sales made via Featured Brands, Onya, and even Amazon. The feminised zero waste imperative to spend money on beautiful domestic objects is an expression of care that disregards the classed aesthetics that accompany it (see also O'Neill, 2021).…”

‘Hey lovely! Don’t miss this opportunity!’ Digital temporalities of wellness culture, email marketing, and the promise of abundance

“…Wellness culture is entangled with other often more legitimised discourses where wellness practices and beliefs co-inform mainstream approaches to health (e.g. neoliberal governance, healthism; O’Neill, 2021; Tiusanen, 2021) as well as more challenging political beliefs (e.g. far-right extremism; Baker, 2022).…”

“…As forms of mundane technology, the background affective tempos of wellness emails are effective precisely because of both their affective banality and the promise of abundance. Wellness emails promise that there is always the potential to live differently, even when medicine or mainstream healthcare may fail someone or not pay ‘enough’ attention to their problems (O’Neill, 2021). By always recirculating new ideas or behaviours, wellness culture promises health distinct from structured biomedical time (organised at the right time for clinicians, not patients).…”

“…Digital technologies and social media have enabled the global growth of wellness industries and culture by (re)producing and circulating the immaterial value of 'wellness' and distributing access to goods and services. Wellness values and beliefs centre pursuits that optimise oneself and body and exceed general health and wellbeing through healthy 'clean' eating and daily exercise self-care routines (Baker, 2022;O'Neill, 2021). Although precedents of wellness cultureincluding New Age or new spirituality, alternative health and healing, self-help and self-development, and therapeutic culture (Baker, 2022;Renser, 2021;Rimke, 2020;Salmenniemi et al, 2019) of course pre-date the internet, understanding wellness through digital culture stresses its communicative role.…”

“…Given this existing scholarship, gender is downplayed in this article. Instead, I focus on email communication modes and practices and use the term 'wellness entrepreneurs' (O'Neill, 2021) to describe the diverse contributors to wellness culture who earn income from their content creation, services or products. These networks co-legitimise wellness entrepreneurs' cultural intermediary (Hutchinson, 2017) work through mutual invitations on podcasts, live videos, and guest blog posts.…”