Over the weekend between Halloween and Election Day, more than 2,000 people gathered in a spacious, dimly lit conference room at Florida’s Palm Beach Convention Center to learn and teach about health promotion. They flew in from Boston and Vancouver, Dallas and New York City, Boulder and the Bay Area. Some brought their mothers. A few of their dogs. They wore amulets and Oura rings, and wore stretch pants and long flowing dresses that reminded them of beach parties and summer. I was there too, curious about why health and wellness was suddenly getting the Lollapalooza treatment in the final months of 2024.
Multiple stages over three days included meditation and yoga teachers, celebrity fitness trainers, nutritionists, scientists, and musicians. But the real draw of this first-of-its-kind conference, named after the Greek word eudemonia, meaning “happiness,” is the first-hand look at the megawatt influencers whose fans and followers are becoming parasocial health guides. It was an opportunity.
The mashup of what the producers called “talent” reflected the strange bedfellows of the wider wellness world. Self-made masters share the stage with university professors, and the line between salesman and academic may be blurred. Adriene Mishler, whose YouTube channel Yoga with Adriene has brought comfort to millions of living rooms during quarantine, was also there to teach a class. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist who provides a self-help podcast, was giving a lecture. Meditator Dan Harris held a session on anxiety, and Pulitzer Prize-winning physician Siddhartha Mukherjee spoke about the application of artificial intelligence to potential cancer treatments.
Long-running artists (and tech and finance industry veterans) Brian Johnson and Dave Asprey were also in attendance. Along with an app and a series of supplements, Johnson was promoting his lifestyle mantra, “Don’t Die.” Ms Asprey, who declared she intended to live to be 180, warned of “junk lighting”, chemicals in skin care products and toxins in plastic. (I was wearing it at dinner one night. blue light filtering Wearing glasses, he refused food and instead placed a sealable plastic bag filled with supplement pills on his empty plate. )
