AS Africa Freedom Day approaches, I have found myself thinking less about politics and more about wellness. Not wellness in the Instagram sense of green juices and expensive retreats, but wellness in the deeper sense. The kind tied to land, memory, food, identity and the quiet daily habits that shape how communities live over generations.
Globally, the wellness industry is now worth trillions. Countries across Europe, the United States and the Middle East are investing heavily in longevity, gut health, mental wellbeing, glucose tracking, fitness technology and preventative healthcare. Wellness is no longer seen as a luxury. It is becoming infrastructure. At the same time, many of us living on the African continent are becoming more urban, more globally connected and more exposed to international lifestyles than previous generations ever were.
There is pride in that progress, and rightly so. For decades, development meant access. Access to supermarkets, imported foods, international brands and lifestyles once associated with success and sophistication. In many households across the continent, imported cereal, fizzy drinks or fast food carried a certain status. They represented modernity. Meanwhile, traditional foods such as millet, cassava leaves, pumpkin leaves, fermented foods, okra and slow-cooked meals were often treated as ordinary, old-fashioned or associated with hardship rather than health.
Yet lately, I have started wondering whether some of the very things we moved away from are now the same things much of the Western wellness industry is trying to rediscover.
In cities like London and Dubai, people now spend significant amounts of money on gut health programmes, ancestral grains, nervous system regulation, glucose monitoring and wellness retreats designed to help people slow down and reconnect with simpler ways of living. High-end supermarkets market fermented foods and fibre-rich ingredients as premium products. Walking is now framed as a wellness trend. Slower eating is discussed as longevity science.
The irony is that while many Western countries are trying to return to what industrialisation disconnected them from, many communities across the African continent are still being encouraged to aspire towards increasingly processed and convenience-driven lifestyles.
This is not an argument against growth, ambition or globalisation. The continent deserves economic power, infrastructure and innovation. No one wants to romanticise poverty or pretend that people should reject comfort and progress. But perhaps the deeper question is whether we can modernise without completely disconnecting from the wisdom of our own environments.
Because wellness is not just about trends. It is about what allows people to function well physically, mentally and economically over time. Increasingly, conversations around diabetes, hypertension, obesity, burnout and stress-related illness are becoming more visible across urban centres from Lusaka to Lagos to Nairobi. Some of that is inevitable with urbanisation, but some of it is also connected to aspiration itself. The lifestyles we celebrate, the foods we market, the convenience we normalise and the quiet belief that imported automatically means better.
Even in healthcare, conversations across the continent are beginning to shift. Our president, Hakainde Hichilema, alongside leaders such as Paul Kagame in Rwanda and Duma Boko in Botswana, has increasingly spoken about strengthening local systems, manufacturing and greater self-reliance. That shift feels important because true development is not only about consuming global products. It is also about ownership and ensuring the continent participates in global wellness and healthcare not only as a consumer, but increasingly as an owner, producer and decision-maker.
At the same time, there is another contradiction unfolding quietly in everyday life. While some governments are discussing healthcare sovereignty and local production, many people across the continent are simultaneously being pulled deeper into imported food systems and ultra-processed aspiration. Wellness trends often become popular here only after they have first been validated by the West, even when many traditional communities already practised slower living, walking more, eating fibre-rich foods and relying on strong community systems long before wellness became fashionable online.
I sometimes think part of the challenge is perception. Many people on the continent grew up associating imported products with success because, historically, access itself symbolised progress. To be able to shop internationally, travel abroad or buy foreign brands often meant your family had “made it.” That mindset did not appear overnight. It was shaped over decades through advertising, colonial influence and global media. So when wellness is marketed back to us through expensive supplements, imported diets or luxury branding, it can feel more aspirational than the simple things already around us.
I notice this tension most when I travel abroad. In London, wellness has become deeply intellectualised and commercialised. People openly discuss blood sugar spikes over coffee, wear glucose sensors to optimise energy levels and attend expensive wellness events focused on slowing down the nervous system. Meanwhile, many foods naturally rooted in African environments still struggle to be viewed as aspirational unless they are first repackaged and validated elsewhere.
Perhaps this is part of the contradiction of modern identity for many of us connected to the continent. We are globally aware,
globally inspired and globally connected, yet still learning how to value ourselves outside of external validation. We are learning how to embrace progress without assuming that everything local must be left behind in the process.
And maybe that is why this conversation feels particularly relevant as we approach Africa Freedom Day. Political independence was never simply about flags and borders. It was always meant to create the conditions for dignity, self-determination and long-term wellbeing. But once a country begins to grow economically and culturally, new questions emerge about what progress should actually look like. The food we consume, the healthcare we prioritise and the lifestyles we aspire towards all become part of that conversation.
Perhaps the next stage of freedom for Africa is not simply political or economic, but biological – reclaiming ownership over the systems, foods and health cultures that shape how we live. Because freedom is not only about who governs us. It is also about what nourishes us.
Kaajal Vaghela is a cultural wellness advisor with over three decades of lived experience managing Type 1 diabetes in Zambia and the diaspora. Having previously served as Chairperson of the Lusaka branch of the Diabetes Association of Zambia, she remains a passionate advocate for breaking down myths and building awareness about diabetes. For more personalised coaching or corporate wellness workshops, visit: www.kaajalvaghela.com and for any feedback: [email protected])
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