It was a Tuesday morning, halfway through a commercial strategy meeting, when I realised I was about to quit my job as Head of Beauty at a glossy magazine – a role I loved, and one I’d spent 13 years building – and put my future in poo.
My best friend, Holly, and I had been quietly working on an all-natural supplement for constipation and bloating alongside our day jobs in the beauty industry for over a year. Evenings, weekends, WhatsApps sent at ungodly hours. Eventually, it reached the point where I couldn’t do both. And poo won.
Why? Because what started as a passion project quickly revealed itself to be something much bigger. We researched bowel habits with over 100 women, and the results were striking: constipation and bloating weren’t niche concerns, they were daily realities – with 74% of the women wanting to poo more regularly. When it came to our consumer trials, women told us something even more powerful – that improving their bowel habits had genuinely changed their lives.
This wasn’t just business; it was personal. Holly had spent 17 years battling chronic constipation. I’d watched the toll it took – physically, emotionally, quietly. And suddenly we had something that worked.
But more than that, we had a mission.
A mission to break poo taboos; to be unapologetically loud in a corner of women’s health that had been muffled by shame and secrecy for far too long.
The poo patriarchy needed dismantling – and it turns out, we weren’t the only ones who thought so. As doctors increasingly step into the role of educators and digital creators, bowel health is fast becoming one of the most talked-about – and long-overdue – conversations in wellness.
This little ecosystem has massive implications for your overall health.
How poo became the wellness world’s unlikeliest buzzword
Constipation isn’t a niche concern – it’s a clinical issue affecting around one in seven adults. And yet, for decades, it’s been treated as something too awkward, too “unfeminine”, or simply too impolite for everyday conversation. Until now.
Spend a few minutes on TikTok and you’ll likely land in an unexpectedly educational corner of the internet: a doctor in scrubs explaining stool transit time, a pelvic floor physio demonstrating optimal toilet posture, or a creator earnestly reviewing butt masks. The hashtag #constipation now racks up millions of views, pulling bowel health into conversations many people never imagined having publicly.
Crucially, the content gaining real traction isn’t sensational – it’s educational. Creators with clinical or nutrition training are breaking down physiology in ways many women were never taught: how long digestion should take, how stress affects motility, and why pelvic floor function matters. This isn’t shock-value wellness - it’s information filling a long-standing gap.
That shift is playing out offline too. Haemorrhoid creams are no longer such a covert purchase, and upmarket spas are rolling out colonic irrigation menus (more on these later). Products and treatments once shrouded in embarrassment are edging into mainstream wellness – slowly, but unmistakably.
Laura Jennings, Head of Nutrition at WE ARE. REGULAR., sees this moment as long overdue.
“For years, bowel health was treated as something private or even shameful, yet it governs everything from digestion and immunity to hormones and mental health,” she says. “Bowel health didn’t suddenly become important – it’s always been important. What’s changed is our willingness to have honest conversations about it.”
The benefits of the nutrient are major, but overdoing it can come with some consequences.
When gut health got real
The gut-health boom of the last decade came with a very specific aesthetic: mason-jar kombucha, rigid lists of “good” and “bad” foods, and trends that often blurred into diet culture with a probiotic glaze.
What’s emerging now feels different. Less performative, more grounded – and far more clinical.
This isn’t about Instagrammable breakfasts with a £20 price tag. It’s about symptoms, discomfort, and everyday realities women have long been encouraged to downplay.
Dr Anisha Patel – a GP and bowel cancer survivor who now uses her platform @doctorsgetcancertoo to educate and empower – is seeing the impact of this shift first-hand.
“In clinic, I’m seeing far more women coming forward with bowel-related symptoms than even five years ago,” she says. “As conversations around gut health, constipation and bloating become more mainstream, women feel less embarrassed to name what’s happening in their own bodies.”
That openness matters. “When you remove shame, you make space for symptom-spotting,” Dr Patel explains. “And that’s often the first step to getting the right help.”
Crucially, she adds: “Bowel symptoms are medical symptoms. When women talk openly about what’s normal for them and what’s changed, we can intervene earlier, investigate properly, and prevent small issues becoming bigger ones.”
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The gender bias beneath the science
This movement isn’t just about education – it’s about undoing decades of dismissal.
Women have long been taught to minimise anything deemed “unfeminine”, messy or inconvenient. From period pain to fertility struggles, discomfort has historically been something to quietly endure. Bowel habits fell into that same silent category.
“Women have been told for years that bloating, constipation and painful bowel movements are just something you have to put up with,” Laura says. “This new openness is about reclaiming agency.”
Dr Anisha Patel sees the consequences of that silence daily.
“Women’s bowel symptoms are more likely to be attributed to stress, anxiety, or labelled as ‘just IBS’ without adequate assessment,” she explains. “I often meet women who have normalised symptoms like constipation or abdominal pain for years because they were told – or assumed – it was ‘just stress’.”
That experience is one my co-founder Holly knows all too well. For nearly two decades, she went from GP appointments to gut-health specialists, repeatedly seeking answers for her chronic constipation – and repeatedly leaving without any lasting solutions. Like so many women, she was left to manage her symptoms rather than understand them.
The consequences of that dismissal can be serious. “Women wait longer for conditions like coeliac disease and inflammatory bowel disease to be recognised,” Dr Patel adds. “And in rare cases, early-onset bowel cancer can be mistaken for gynaecological or hormonal issues. Earlier, more open conversations genuinely help us diagnose sooner.”
When wellness goes too far
Of course, not everything flying under the banner of bowel health is helpful.
As with any booming category, caution tape appears. Colonics are rebranded as spa treatments. Viral hacks promise overnight relief. Quick-fix culture hasn’t disappeared - it’s just adopted more clinical language.
This is where medical clarity matters.
“From a clinical perspective, I don’t recommend colonic irrigation whatsoever as a wellness treatment,” says Dr Patel. “There’s no robust evidence it provides long-term gut-health benefits, and it carries risks – including dehydration, electrolyte imbalances and, in rare cases, bowel perforation or infection.”
She’s equally wary of shortcuts. “Overusing laxatives can cause dependency and dangerous imbalances. If you’re relying on hacks to keep your bowels moving, that’s a sign to seek proper medical advice.”
Laura agrees: “The question to ask is whether something supports physiology or just promises a shortcut. Bowel health isn’t fixed by hacks – it’s built through consistent, sustainable habits.”
And this is where my own story loops back in.
01. Bowel + Bloat Relief was born out of my co-founder Holly’s lifelong struggle with constipation. She discovered a combination of 10 all-natural vitamins, minerals and botanicals that genuinely changed her life – taking her from a once-a-week pooer to going every single day with ease.
So we did what we knew we had to do: we put all of those ingredients into one easy-to-take stick that didn’t cost a bomb. A fine powder you mix into water and drink daily – because it’s daily habits like these that make a long-term difference.
“WE ARE. REGULAR. 01 Bowel + Bloat Relief stands out in the crowded supplement space because it isn’t a probiotic or a harsh laxative,” Laura explains. “It’s a multi-ingredient formula designed to support the gut on multiple levels. By combining gentle osmotic magnesium for motility, gut-soothing botanicals like ginger and peppermint, and L-glutamine to help strengthen the gut lining, it works with your digestive system rather than forcing it.”
But the product was never the only goal. It was a response — to silence, dismissal, and the idea that women should simply put up with discomfort.
Let's break the poo taboo together
Taking bowel health into the mainstream has an impact far beyond the bathroom. It means women feeling comfortable enough to acknowledge – and tend to – a part of their health that’s been wrapped in shame for too long.
Ultimately, bowel health’s rise isn’t another wellness cycle – it’s a cultural correction. It’s women refusing to accept discomfort as normal, and recognising that health doesn’t only live in green juices and reformer studios, but sometimes in the conversations we’ve avoided the longest.
If the next era of wellness means discussing stool consistency with the same ease we discuss skincare routines?
Now that’s poo progress.
There are a few reasons to think about adjusting your dinnertime.
