Belonging Heals: The Overlooked Pillar of Wellness
When we think about health, the focus is often on individual behaviors such as exercise, nutrition, sleep, and stress. But there’s another key ingredient that often gets overlooked: belonging. The health of a community depends not only on the actions of one individual but on whether everyone feels welcome and safe enough to access care and fully participate in community and gym spaces.
Inclusivity – across race, gender, sexual orientation, and body size – isn’t just a buzzword. Inclusivity is a public health issue.
We can trace the word wellness back to its Ayurvedic roots, where wellness depends on the delicate balance between body, mind, spirit, and environment. More recently, however, it has been co-opted by modern consumerism to sell products within a system that constantly tells us we’re not enough. At EVOLVE, we subscribe to the original context of wellness. And to support true wellness, we must ask: Who is being left out? Who feels unseen or unsafe in our gyms, clinics, support groups, or health education programs? And what can we do to change that?
Health Disparities Are Rooted in Exclusion
Health disparities don’t arise in a vacuum. They’re shaped by a complex web of systemic inequities including racism, fatphobia, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, and economic injustice. These forces directly impact people’s access to care, the quality of care they receive, and even how safe they feel walking into a gym, clinic, or community space in the first place.
For example, research shows that BIPOC individuals face higher rates of chronic illness due to systemic inequality, and they receive worse care than white patients, even when controlling for income and insurance status (Price et al., 2017). Additionally, more than 40% of the U.S. population has experienced weight stigma in medical or fitness environments, which leads to delayed care, biased treatment, poorer mental health outcomes, and decreased physical activity. (Brown et al., 2022)
One of the most urgent and often overlooked examples of health inequality is the experience of LGBTQ+ individuals.
LGBTQ+ Communities Face Higher Health Risks
The LGBTQ+ individuals, especially transgender people and queer youth face disproportionate health challenges due to discrimination, stigma, and systemic neglect. This isn’t about “identity politics”; it’s about validated, measurable health outcomes.
1 in 6 LGBTQ+ adults report avoiding health care due to anticipated discrimination (Casey et al., 2019)
LGBTQ+ individuals are more than twice as likely to experience depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation compared to their heterosexual and cisgender peers.
According to The Trevor Project’s 2024 national survey, 39% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered suicide in the past year, including 46% of transgender and nonbinary youth. However, those who reported having at least one affirming adult in their life were 40% less likely to attempt suicide. This is why wellness is a community endeavor.
LGBTQ+ individuals are more than twice as likely to experience depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation than their heterosexual and cisgender peers. According to the Trevor Project, a 2024 national survey found that 39% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered suicide in the past year, including over half, 46% of transgender and nonbinary youth. All the while, if people reported having at least one affirming adult in their life, they were 40% less likely to attempt suicide. This is why wellness is a community endeavor (Trevor, 2019).
29% of transgender individuals report being refused care due to their gender identity, and many encounter providers who lack even basic training on trans health.
And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is getting worse. As of 2024, over 900 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced nationwide, and 27 states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors. These legislative attacks only deepen existing barriers to care.
If I haven’t been clear already, discrimination and systemic marginalization have tangible physical effects. LGBTQ+ people face higher risks for cardiovascular disease, substance use, chronic pain, and sexually transmitted infections, not because of their identities, but because of how they are treated in society and health systems (Hafeez et al., 2017)
Inclusivity Isn’t Optional—It’s Foundational
When someone walks into a clinic or gym and doesn’t see anyone who looks like them… when they brace themselves to be misgendered, dismissed, or judged… when the intake forms don’t reflect their identity… when the equipment doesn’t fit their body, or the culture doesn’t reflect their experience… these are not just uncomfortable experiences. These are health risks. That’s a health risk.
Inclusive practices make healthcare and wellness more effective for everyone, not just those in marginalized groups. When we normalize asking for pronouns, challenge weight bias, provide gender-neutral bathrooms, recruit diverse staff, and train providers in cultural humility, we create systems that are more responsive, compassionate, and evidence-based.
At EVOLVE, we know we’re not always perfect, but we try to be intentional. We've created our clinic, gym, and community space with care because we know Pride isn’t just a month, and it’s not just a flag on a shirt. Creating inclusive, thoughtful, and open environments isn’t marketing, it’s health and belonging. People cannot heal in places where they feel unsafe. They cannot thrive in systems that erase, judge, or devalue them.
Pride and inclusion are not political… They're human.
Running a small business in a small town can make navigating politics tricky. There’s often a tension between traditional marketing advice, which is essentially the art of not offending anyone, and standing up for what we believe in.
Over the past year, many businesses and organizations have pulled back from their inclusion initiatives. We find this heartbreaking because it reveals how hollow those commitments were to begin with. We’ve lost members in the past because of our values, and you know what? We’re okay with that. If someone chooses not to support us, that’s their right. But if you walk through our doors, you are welcome here, as long as you respect everyone else who is welcome here, too.
At EVOLVE, we return to something simple: basic human decency as a guiding principle. Access to appropriate, safe healthcare should be a universal human right, even when there’s disagreement on other policy issues. Somewhere along the way, it feels like we’ve collectively lost sight of core civic values, caring for your neighbor, assuming the best in others, and treating everyone with dignity and respect.
Inclusivity isn’t about being “politically correct,” or about being “right” or “left.” And it’s certainly not radical. It’s about being human. It’s about creating a community that lifts everyone up, especially those who’ve been pushed to the margins. And in doing so, we all benefit from the strength of a more connected, compassionate, and truly thriving community.
References
Price JH, Khubchandani J, McKinney M, Braun R. Racial/ethnic disparities in chronic diseases of youths and access to health care in the United States. Biomed Res Int. 2013;2013:787616. doi: 10.1155/2013/787616. Epub 2013 Sep 23. PMID: 24175301; PMCID: PMC3794652.
Lee, K. M., Hunger, J. M., & Tomiyama, A. J. (2021). Weight stigma and health behaviors: Evidence from the Eating in America Study. International Journal of Obesity, 45(7), 1499-1509. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-021-00814-5
Brown, A., Flint, S. W., & Batterham, R. L. (2022). Pervasiveness, impact and implications of weight stigma. EClinicalMedicine, 47, 101408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101408
Casey LS, Reisner SL, Findling MG, et al. (2019) Discrimination in the United States: Experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Americans. Health Services Research 54 Suppl 2(Suppl 2): 1454–1466.
The Trevor Project. 2024 U.S. national survey on the mental health of LGBTQ+ young people. The Trevor Project. Published 2024. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2024/