Sarah Ann Macklin

Why organisations work with Sarah Ann Macklin

• Her book Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard, an instant Sunday Times bestseller with Penguin, argues from eight years of research that how people speak to themselves changes their stress hormones and digestion. That puts hard science under a wellbeing agenda that usually runs on good intentions.
• Across more than 500 episodes of Live Well Be Well, ranked among Spotify’s most-shared shows of 2025, she has questioned the world’s leading health scientists directly. Audiences get current science from someone who interrogates it for a living.
• Scouted as a model at 16 and hospitalised with burnout at 23, she speaks about the human cost of optimisation culture from direct experience, which carries unusual weight with high-pressure workforces.
• Her credibility is institutional, built through a Harley Street clinic advising C-suite clients, a mental health CIC she founded, and findings on type 2 diabetes she presented to the European Parliament.

Biography highlights

• Author of Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard (Penguin / Bantam Press, 2026), an instant Sunday Times bestseller with a foreword by Dr Stacy Sims.
• Host of the Live Well Be Well podcast: 500+ episodes, a YouTube channel past 100,000 subscribers, and one of Spotify’s most-shared shows of 2025.
• Registered Associate Nutritionist with the Association for Nutrition, holding a First-Class BSc in Human Nutrition from London Metropolitan University.
• Founder and CEO of Be Well Collective, a mental health Community Interest Company focused on prevention.
• Presented findings on dietary guidelines and type 2 diabetes to the European Parliament (2018); TEDx speaker, Are Models Role Models?
• Nutrition and wellness contributor to Harper’s Bazaar, Women’s Health, Esquire, and the Evening Standard; named “the Jamie Oliver of nutrition” by Marie Claire.

Biography

The global wellness industry is worth $8.5 trillion, and by most measures people are getting less healthy, not more. Sarah Ann Macklin spent years inside that industry before she could explain why. Scouted as a model at 16, she worked across London and New York for brands including Burberry and Dolce & Gabbana. She pursued the ideal body until burnout put her in hospital at 23.

That reckoning sent her back to study. She earned a first-class degree in Human Nutrition from London Metropolitan University, having nearly dropped out when dyslexia was identified mid-course. A decade of clinical work followed, including a Harley Street practice whose clients ranged from magazine editors to C-suite executives.

The pattern she saw in the clinic became her argument. Her clients were informed and motivated, yet defeated by the pressure to optimise every meal and metric. In Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard, her Penguin debut and an instant Sunday Times bestseller, she makes an unusual case. Self-compassion changes physiology, altering stress hormones and even how the body absorbs nutrients.

For organisations, this reframes the wellbeing budget. Macklin’s case is that resilience training layered onto a culture of relentless optimisation adds to the very load it is meant to lift. Her platform gives the argument reach: the Live Well Be Well podcast has passed 500 episodes with leading health scientists and ranked among Spotify’s most-shared shows in 2025.

Key speaking topics

• Self-compassion and sustainable health
• The psychology of optimisation culture and burnout
• Nutrition and the mind-body connection
• Employee wellbeing and workplace mental health
• Preventive mental health
• Neurodiversity and dyslexia at work
• Women’s health and role models in high-pressure industries

Ideal for

• CHROs and people leaders rebuilding wellbeing strategy after high spend and low impact
• Organisations in high-pressure sectors such as finance, law, media, and fashion with rising burnout
• Employee wellbeing, DEI, and mental health leads planning awareness events with genuine substance
• Conferences and leadership offsites seeking a science-grounded health voice with clinical credibility

Audience outcomes

• Why rising wellbeing budgets often fail to reduce burnout, and what actually shifts it
• How chronic stress and self-criticism affect the body, from digestion to sleep
• A way to frame employee wellbeing that lowers pressure on people instead of adding targets
• A credible case, backed by research, that rest and self-compassion belong inside a high-performance culture