Wellness became an important trend over the last years. People are more and more interested to enhance their well-being, demanding more transparency and cleaner ingredients in their products and getting more informed across health disciplines.
But better let’s see the biggest wellness trends of the last decade, from the most consistent exercise routine to the latest natural remedies and diets.
Read on and discover the best ways to improve your mental and physical well-being:
2011: Fast-Casual Dining Takes Off
The fast-casual restaurants became the fastest-growing food business between 2011 and 2016, meeting the needs of health-conscious people that are too busy to prepare healthy foods for themselves. By making healthy attainable with inexpensive, nourishing meals, these fast-casual eateries become one of the strongest restaurant concepts worldwide over the past decade.
2012: Kale And Other Hero Ingredients
In 2012, kale was considered one of the top 10 foods of the year. In one of her music videos, Beyonce would even wear a Kale sweatshirt transforming this popular ingredient into a hipster statement. McDonalds added kale in its breakfast bowls and Pizza Hut became one of the largest buyers of kale. As a matter of fact, 2012 was named “The Year of Kale” by Time Magazine because the production of kale increased by almost 60 percent those days. Nowadays its popularity was overtaken by quinoa, avocados and other nutrient-dense superfoods that cover the social media feeds, restaurant menus, food product labels and blogs.
2013: The Boutique Fitness Boom
2013 started with an explosion of new fitness offerings. The interest in fitness increased due to the rise of boutique fitness businesses that were booming in this niche sector, outpacing the mainstream rivals. Working out was no longer the main activity of gym rats but a real movement among health-minded individuals. The membership to these boutiques increased by 70% in comparison to traditional gyms where the retention grew only by 5%.
2014: Keep it Clean
The idea of ingredient transparency and clean labelling became a real trend in 2014 in the food industry. More and more companies began replacing artificial ingredients with natural colours, sweeteners and thickeners. These significant structural changes in the food production have been driven by consumer demands but also by an increased competition, new FDA requirements, innovative farm programs and environmental concerns. This desire for real ingredients, less processed products and clean labels continues to grow and expand to beauty products as well.
2015: Wellness Meets Instagram
The rise of social media has catapulted the healthy-eating and living trend, determining one of the biggest shifts in the wellness industry. The rise of wellness influencers that were promoting all those healthy meal plans and all the trendy fitness programs, cultivated dedicated communities on platforms like You Tube or Instagram. Until recently, people were reading about the best workout plan, the top trending exercise or the latest diet in magazines. Now, social media is making wellness mainstream, creating one of the biggest shifts in this department through user generated content and digital marketing. It’s true that the spread of unfiltered information can be a side-effect of this approach but there’s no denying that most of the brands have become mainstream this way.
2016: Don’t Forget About Self-Care
Nowadays if you scroll through Facebook or Instagram you will find all kinds of ideas about how to take care of your body and mind, from yoga classes to cooking programs and face masks. Self-care becomes this way not a luxury but a daily necessity, surging in popularity and spreading from status updates to blog articles and news. This movement coincides with a shift from dieting and physical fitness to meditation and mindfulness, as ways of improving rather the mental health.
2017: Go with Your Gut
Digestive health has become an important part of wellness and a significant trend with all kinds of fermented foods skyrocketing in popularity. Since studies have shown that the gut flora has such an important role in our overall health, from immunity to mental health, probiotics and fermented foods began to catch consumer’s attention. More and more food manufacturers developed new gut-healthy products and supplements dominated by fiber, expanding this market and making digestive wellness the leading health trend. If you’re interested in taking care of your gut health, we recommend you’ll try Inner Harmony from ALLKME, a plant-based detox powder that received extremely good reviews among influencers and customers.
2018: It’s Personal
2018 was the year of personalized health recommendations. Customers are more and more interested in wellness advice that work and new developments that can really improve their health. There’s no place for bad diets and confusion anymore. Innovation and technology have enabled brands to offer tailored suggestions based on customer’s DNA or microbiome and it seems that this trend will explode in the next decade.
2019: Plant-Based Everything
Last year we’ve noticed an increased interest in plant-based diets and their impact on digestive and mental health as preventive but also therapeutic ways to fight against obesity and other related eating disorders or symptoms. More and more people are reducing the intake of animal-sourced products, replacing them with plant-based alternatives from plant-based milks to cheeses. This green revolution was enhanced by the growing health and environmental concerns and even big fast-food chains begin selling plant-based products as well.
What’s Next?
Once you’ve welcomed well-being into your life, you can expect to find new diets, new exercise routines, new supplement wellness retreats and other opportunities that focus on responsible living, sustainability and efficiency. The next decade brings a slower rhythm where a stress-free lifestyle is the main objective together with an emphasis on recovery exercises rather than full hours of sweat sessions at the gym.
More and more career opportunities in the wellness world, more and more trainers and dietitians, a continue rise in plant-based industry and more personalised wellness apps.
