Health Update: Defining wellness in Florence | The Florentine The Florentine – What Experts Say

The top of my head points toward the floor as I push my hips to the sky, catching a glimpse of the sunlight peeking through the window. For a minute, my brain is just as disoriented as my physical body, and I find myself wondering: am I in Florence or California? 

Since I’ve moved here, I’ve been surprised to see that the city has a thriving wellness scene. In a city deeply rooted in art, culture and good food, I’ve also been perplexed by its popularity. In California, wellness was the dominant lifestyle, from daily green juices to yoga classes and IV vitamin drips. While Florence is not at the same level as the California wellness craze, the city does offer a range of options to partake. But what’s been gnawing at me is what is driving the wellness boom in a city in a country that has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world. In fact, Italy leads the European Union in life expectancy. More people are living to 100. In a time when scientists are turning to Italy to understand human health and longevity, why are curated California-centric wellness experiences becoming so popular? 

“It’s the fashionable thing,” Lenka Drtilová Peruzzi, the founder of Moodra Yoga Studio, told me. “I don’t think people really need it.” 

Due to Italy’s culture, access to healthy food, and focus on community and family, Italians have long understood benessere, which literally translates to “to be well”. Local interest in wellness hasn’t been a result of poor health or a lack of access to healthy food and experiences, which is one reason why the wellness boom arrived a little later in Italy. As Covid-19 shut down the world and pushed much of the wellness world online, Drtilová Peruzzi said she saw an increase in interest in wellness emerge after the pandemic. It’s likely not a coincidence that people were online more and coming across more American wellness content on social media, paving the way for wellness businesses to open in Florence. But once people’s lives returned to some sense of normalcy, Drtilová Peruzzi noticed a dip in customers at her studio, suggesting that people didn’t need a curated wellness experience to feel good and be healthy. In 2025, the Global Wellness Institute, which researches the economy in question, announced that the wellness market was “on fire” and had grown 35 per cent since 2019. But in Italy, between 2021 and 2022, there was a bit of a dip. However, since 2022, it’s grown steadily.

“Now there are two groups of people: those who are sporty and interested in well-being, both mental and physical—they are the ones who practice yoga and Pilates,” Drtilová Peruzzi explained. “And then there are others who come because it’s fashionable. A lot of Italians really follow trends.” 

Aparna Thadani, co-founder of The22, a members’ wellness club in central Florence, said yoga isn’t new to Florence post-pandemic, but before it was more “niche”. However, with the significant increase in immigration over the past few years, there has been a corresponding rise in interest in fitness studios that offer yoga, Pilates and more. 

“Wellness has become so mainstream, especially after Covid, it’s like a home away from home,” Thadani remarked. “McDonald’s used to be a place of comfort for Americans who used to travel, like 40 years ago, whereas today I think the equivalent is avocado toast.” Thadani said that a wellness studio provides travelers with “that same comfort”, adding that wellness has also become part of “travel culture”. 

In every industry, trends change. Last year, the wellness segment saw more international interest in sauna culture and the use of technology to optimize one’s health. In Florence, Thadani said Pilates was very popular at The22. This year, she’s seeing an increased interest in strength training. According to Condé Nast Traveler, 2026 is a year when “wellness seekers” are looking to be social, not necessarily discover the coolest new kind of fitness class. As a decades-long Harvard study in human health and longevity found, social connections and positive relationships help us live longer, something Italians have long known. Perhaps that’s why wellness studios in Florence are already ahead of that trend, centering community in their offerings. 

For example, this year at The22 the latest promotion is that every member can bring one guest for free to any class until the end of March. “The idea of bringing a friend is to expand the community, but also this is a social activity,” Thadani said. “This is something we can all do together.”

In the future, Thadani said she sees wellness being “a much more integrated approach to fitness”. “It’s fitness of the body, but also fitness of the mind,” she said. “Italian culture really influenced me and my yoga practice. Yoga is not just what you do on the mat; it’s what you do in life.”

Maybe when it comes to wellness in Florence, it’s not just about following the trends, but setting them—and not just locally, but eventually globally.