Health: Built, Not Bought

You Can’t Consume Your Way to Health

As a culture, we’ve stopped being involved in things and started consuming them instead.

Take music. People used to play instruments, sing together, join choirs or garage bands. Now most of us just stream Spotify while doing something else. In Australia, fewer than 13% of adults actively make music—but nearly everyone consumes it daily.

Or sport. Kids used to play footy in the street or shoot hoops for hours. Now they’re more likely to watch highlights on YouTube or play FIFA on a console. A 2022 report showed that less than 20% of Aussie teens meet the recommended levels of physical activity, and participation in community sport continues to drop—especially after childhood.

We’ve become spectators in areas we once lived. And that mindset—of watching instead of doing—has crept into our health too.

More and more, health is being sold as something you can buy. A supplement for energy. A smoothie powder for gut health. A pill for weight loss. A surgery for instant change. It’s all packaged up like a product you can order online and forget about the rest.

And we’re buying it—literally.

Over 75% of Australians now use supplements or complementary medicines, and the industry is worth more than $6.1 billion a year. Cosmetic procedures are booming too—Australians spend more per capita on them than Americans, with over $1 billion a year going to things like liposuction and body contouring. These aren’t just vanity moves—they’re often sold as health solutions.

Meanwhile, only 27% of Australian adults meet basic physical activity guidelines. Just 5% of Australians eat enough fruit and veg. And over half of us regularly get poor sleep.

I'm certainly not saying supplements can't play a role, but they should only ever be just that, a supplement to the big rocks of diet, sleep and exercise.

And I get it. Life is busy. People are overwhelmed. The idea that you could just pop a capsule or do a “detox” and feel better is incredibly appealing. It’s marketed that way on purpose. Convenience is king.

But the problem is that this consumer mindset pulls us further away from the stuff that actually works.

You don’t need a $300 supplement stack. You need to move your body. You need real food. You need sunlight, fresh air, sleep, and connection.

So what’s the pattern?

We’re reaching for fixes—capsules, cleanses, surgeries—while skipping the actual foundations of health.

But here’s the hard truth: you can’t consume your way to health.

You can’t sit at a desk all day, eat out of boxes, doom-scroll late into the night, and expect a capsule or detox kit to cancel it all out. That’s not how the body works. It never has been.

We’ve been sold the idea that health is something we add to our lives—when in reality, it’s something we live. That means movement, sleep, real food, sunlight, connection, breathing, getting uncomfortable sometimes.

All the boring, unsexy stuff that actually works.

But in a consumerist culture, that kind of effort doesn’t sell. No one’s making billions telling you to walk after dinner or turn off your phone at 9pm. So instead, we get bombarded with products and protocols that promise results without the work.

It’s the same consumer mindset—health as a product, not a process.

But if you’re honest with yourself, you know it doesn’t work that way.

• Did you move today?

• Did you make your food?

• Did you unplug and get outside?

• Did you sleep well, breathe deeply, get uncomfortable in a good way?

If you didn’t move, didn’t cook, didn’t sleep—but you took a probiotic and some fish oil and chose the low calorie muffin at the cafe—then you’re still just thinking about health, not living it.

Supplements have their place. So does good info. But they’re just the garnish, not the meal.

Health isn’t passive. You have to live it. And that takes effort—but it’s worth it. Because real health is earned, not ordered. Built, not bought. Lived, not streamed.

So next time you’re tempted by a shortcut, ask yourself:

Am I doing health—or just buying the illusion of it?