he best things in life are free. We all know that. Yet life itself, or at least a long and healthy one, is far from it. If you believe the wellness industry, that is. January is the sector’s silly-season. Adverts abound for wildly expensive supplements, exercise machines and accessories that will transform your year, your health and your entire future. And we are buying their claims, and their products.

According to the Global Wellness Institute, which publishes an annual review of the industry, the world spent $5.6 trillion on wellness in 2022, but is all this spending making us happier and healthier? Last year, the institute published the first ever global investigation into this very question.

The broad findings were positive. Tot up everything from meditation apps to weight-loss programmes via spa breaks, and the strength of a nation’s wellness economy did seem to correlate with longer and healthier life. The investigation also found, however, that “for some wellness sectors, there is little or no statistical relationship with health outcome indicators”.

Why? Likely because “spending money on a wellness activity is not always a good indicator of actually engaging in wellness and healthy behaviours”. Purchase a fancy gym membership, in other words, and you won’t magically acquire the motivation required to show up and put the work in. So which of the glitzy, pricy products endorsed by celebrities and beloved by social media are actually superior to their less sexy, more affordable