5 minute read
Welcome to the century when health is not the main point of survival. We can cure most of the viruses and diseases. As a result, we do not think only about the survival but for the health way of living. Fitness, detox, yoga and wellness trips is a growing industry and the incredible life span just makes society to value each moment of “me time”.
It is fancy
being well
Wellness industry market is incredibly large. In 2013, it was three times bigger than the worldwide pharmaceutical market, $3,4 trillion against $1 trillion. Some argue that the baby boomers drive the demand. They are the first generation who got used getting what they want, and the most important issue is to live longer. Therefore, they are ready to spend money for wellness. Beauty and an anti-aging sector is as large as $1,026 billion. Moreover, the trend continues from boomers to millennials and generation Z.
People share the kilometers they ran, want to be identified with the wellness subgroups and connect worldwide to discuss their accomplishments. Gym membership is now the health-oriented community, rather than a group of people losing weight. The boutique gyms share the whole advanced style of life, with a healthy body and a healthy mind. The “being active is fun”, “being more human” and other slogans by Nike – everything promotes the wellness. Sport brands invite the famous fashion houses to create the collections, for example, Stella MacCartney for Addidas, Alexandr Wang for H[&]M. Beyonce as the face of TopShop’s sport line and Rihanna as Puma face, Karlie Kloss for Nike, all of them blend the sport with fashion. The trend causes the crazy jump in sneakers as an everyday fashionable item popularity.
Balancing the fashion and elegance, the market for the tough marathons events grows. “Back to wild” events, where participants have to battle the obstacles, cycle the forests, swim the lake and other high resistance types of action to prove yourself you worth it. The Spartan Race itself hosted 130 events around the world in 2014, Tough Murder is expecting to have up to 700 000 participants in 130 events in 17 different countries in 2015. Iron Man, Warrior Dash, and the list may go on and on. Moreover, one of the surprising statistics is that almost 30% of participants are women.
Women empowerment
power
Women empowerment boosts the gym membership rise as well. Yoga obsession, group motivation, weight loss, meeting new people with same interests all of them are the strong reasons pushing people to get involved. The youtube reel “This girl can” gain almost 9 million views: “This Girl Can celebrate the women who are doing their thing no matter how they do it, how they look or even how sweaty they get. They’re here to inspire us to wiggle, jiggle, move and prove that judgement is a barrier that can be overcome.”
The change in Social identity switch we discussed before (click here[nbsp]to read Global Social Identity: what to expect) is relevant here as well. The race, geographical location, age and gender are not the points of identity. Same goal and interest, the wellness, in this case, determines the community you are in.
Finally, the technology and gadget obsession. The sport tracker bracelets, watches, applications are designed to motivate us to move more. They endorse when the person reaches 1000 steps and any other set goal for a day. Moreover, most of us have it as a primary function in the smartphone. Online personal trainer-motivator to help you to keep up with healthy food and optimal daily activity level. And the Nike turning the workout into the computer game. Working together with XBox Kinect training, Nike created the personalised home training game. But that was a couple of years ago. Today they work on creating the virtual reality sport. First impression you can get from their trailer (do not forget to use the arrow):
Home
Work
Travel
Putting the fashion thing aside, let’s turn to the daily working life. Most people will agree that the home and work borders are blurring. The crazy life speed level makes us cherish every free moment we got that is called me-time. The lack of such time increases its value and the price we are ready to pay for wellness.
The workplace offers the wellness centre for their employers, as it is cheaper than paying for all the doctors and sick leaves. Some even offer the service of the line coaches, who work closely with employers and HR in the company. Exercise breaks and gym membership for all workers increase the team connection and communication level in the enterprise. According to the Wall Street research the number of companies with the wellness program grows, as well as its value for employees.
Not only the workplace but also the Wellness travel industry rockets the world. According to the Global Wellness Institute, in 13% of the travel reasons, is the primary wellness travel. And the number of people going to the spa vacations, grows with the trend. Cherish your body, cherish your mind will continue to grow in every part of our life.
