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The McKinsey Podcast
WHAT’S NEW IN CONSUMER WELLNESS TRENDS?
May 16, 2024 | Podcast
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A closer look at the $1.8 trillion global market for consumer wellness products
reveals shifting preferences in certain categories—and growing opportunities for
companies and brands.
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Article (9 pages)
Pass the probiotics and the clinically effective products instead of the “clean
and natural” ones: McKinsey’s latest research on the future of wellness provides
a snapshot of how consumers worldwide, across all geographies and generations,
are approaching their health and wellness and the types of interventions they
are prioritizing. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey partner Anna
Pione joins editorial director Roberta Fusaro to discuss what’s trending, why,
and where innovation is needed.
In our second segment, sometimes well-intentioned counsel misses the mark.
McKinsey senior partner Gayatri Shenai shares how she failed to recognize a
colleague’s cry for help.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
The McKinsey Podcast is cohosted by Roberta Fusaro and Lucia Rahilly.
UNDERSTANDING THE CONSUMER WELLNESS SPACE
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Roberta Fusaro: I have so many questions for you today. Like why I have become
addicted to my fitness tracker, for one. But let’s start with the numbers.
McKinsey recently published its latest research on the future of wellness. We
talked to 5,000 consumers in the US, the UK, and China about how they’re
thinking about wellness. What were we looking to measure with this report?
Anna Pione: We started this research back in 2020, because we were getting a lot
of questions from investors and companies about this concept of wellness. Is it
something that would be sustaining? Is it something that they should think about
investing behind? So we decided to launch this research to really understand how
consumers around the world are approaching their health and wellness and how
that’s evolved, what they’re looking for, and therefore how companies and brands
can better evolve their offerings to meet consumer needs.
Roberta Fusaro: What are the main categories consumers are investing in, and how
much are they investing?
Anna Pione: We’re seeing a lot of investment by consumers, and we’re seeing that
prioritization continue to grow. We segment wellness across six different
dimensions: better health, fitness, sleep, mindfulness, appearance, and
nutrition.
Roberta Fusaro: Is wellness a big deal equally for citizens across the globe, or
are there huge regional differences?
Anna Pione: We knew that consumers were increasingly treating wellness as a
priority. What surprised us and continues to surprise us every year is how much
of a priority it is. Just to give you some numbers against it, this year, 82
percent of consumers in the US, 73 percent in the UK, and 87 percent in China
reported wellness as a top or very important priority in their lives. And what
we find even more striking is that the focus keeps increasing. More than half of
consumers say they prioritize wellness more than they did a year ago.
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Roberta Fusaro: Do these wellness priorities and the wellness spending vary by
age or demographic? Do we see differences between, say, Gen Z and millennials
and baby boomers?
Anna Pione: All the consumers we interviewed are thinking about and prioritizing
their wellness. That said, what we have seen consistently in our research is
that millennials are the most enthusiastic generation when it comes to both
spend and participation across different types of product and service offerings.
But this year, what we were really interested to see was Gen Z really stepping
into prominence, and we think this is a group to watch going forward.
Roberta Fusaro: Interesting. The report is rich with data on current trends and
identifies seven areas in which we’re seeing technological advances and
increased consumer interest and innovation. We only have so much time today, so
we’re focusing on four of these areas in particular: healthy aging, weight
management, gut health, and sleep. How much of a consumer priority is healthy
aging, based on our research results?
HEALTHY AGING
Anna Pione: Healthy aging is a really big priority. What we’ve seen is this
matters from both a societal and consumer perspective. From a societal
perspective, the old-age dependency ratio will have tripled between 1950 and
2050. The McKinsey Health Institute suggests that boosting quality of life,
while managing age-related diseases, will be critical and that in order to do
this, we’re really going to need a holistic approach to move the needle. On the
consumer side, we see that over 60 percent of people have said it’s extremely or
very important to purchase longevity products, and 70 percent are planning to
buy more products in the future.
> On the consumer side, we see that over 60 percent of people have said it’s
> extremely or very important to purchase longevity products, and 70 percent are
> planning to buy more products in the future.
Roberta Fusaro: What are the types of interventions or products that we’re
talking about?
Anna Pione: We see a lot of this in the supplement space, in particular.
Products like CoQ10 might be geared more toward an older demographic, whereas
different types of supplements might be geared toward younger consumers aiming
for longevity. We also see it in the beauty space and in different types of
services that are more cutting-edge across the health space. Particularly when
targeting an older consumer, what we’ve found to be the essential thing to keep
in mind is to focus on the need state or the aspiration of what is being
accomplished through the offering versus the process itself. Whereas for a
younger consumer, a focus on prevention tends to be a more effective angle to
help consumers feel like their needs are being met.
Roberta Fusaro: I’m curious whether the research suggests why we’re seeing a
little bit of an uptick among younger consumers in their attention to this
topic. Is it better marketing?
Anna Pione: Our hypothesis and what we’ve heard from consumers would suggest
that there may be some element of the COVID-19 pandemic coming into play. There
was this massive shock to many people’s lives and in such a way that it really
made people much more conscious of their health and what they could do to be
proactive about taking their health into their own hands and living a long and
healthy life.
This is something that had been gaining momentum even prior to COVID-19. But
what we saw during the pandemic was that a lot of these concepts really took
hold and accelerated in a way we hadn’t seen previously.
Roberta Fusaro: What are the implications for companies that are trying to reach
consumers with these healthy-aging products? How should they look at these data,
and what should they do differently?
Anna Pione: There are a couple of implications. One is revisiting their
portfolio of products and services and thinking about what types of offerings
they have and where there might be gaps from a healthy-aging or longevity
perspective that they could bring to market. The second one is really thinking
critically about how they manage their messaging and communications to
consumers—especially, again, for an older consumer, messaging about how they are
getting older is not one that really resonates. It’s much more about what you’re
going to help that consumer do and what are the things that you’re going to help
them improve in their life. That tends to resonate.
Roberta Fusaro: I know I don’t want to be reminded constantly that I am getting
older, so that makes perfect sense. Anna, according to the report, one in three
adults struggle with obesity in the United States. What did the research show in
terms of its importance?
WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
Anna Pione: This was one that had come up time and time again in our research as
a need state that is critical for consumers. It’s one that, again, matters from
both a societal and consumer perspective. In our survey, we see that 60 percent
of consumers are seeking a weight management solution and over half of them are
looking to lose ten or more pounds. This is something that people have top of
mind, and they want to prioritize it, but it’s just really hard to act upon it
and make those changes. And so that’s where we see opportunities for companies
and brands to step in and help consumers achieve their goals.
Roberta Fusaro: What kinds of opportunities are we talking about? Which weight
loss interventions are resonating with folks?
Anna Pione: Fitness has always been near the top of the list in terms of things
that people try when they’re seeking to lose weight, and that’s something we’ve
seen in the past and expect to continue. It’s a very established link between
those two categories.
Historically, the other types of interventions in the category were a bit more
mature. We saw things like weight loss programs and weight loss supplements as
much more established, mature categories—fairly sizable, but not in a growth
stage.
Maybe five to ten or more years ago, we saw some new offerings for things like
juice cleanses becoming much more mainstream and easily accessible, as well as
healthier meal kits.
What has changed more recently is prescription medication. There’s been a real
evolution of the category in the past couple of years. When we did our research,
prescription weight loss offerings, in the US at least, were the most highly
regarded in terms of effectiveness.
It’ll be interesting to look out for the complementary product and service
offerings that may spring up to help consumers meet their health and nutrition
needs while they’re taking GLP-1 prescription medication, as well as
supplements: things like nutrition bars that help consumers meet their macro
needs, lifestyle coaching services that help consumers ensure they’re getting
the right nutrients, or fitness routines around their medication.
In parallel, this is where I’d link a few of the trends that we saw in our
research, like consumers using biomonitoring to really understand their health
and tailor their activities to better optimize for that, as well as
personalization and, in particular, generative AI [gen AI] as a tool to help
companies better personalize their offerings. One of the biggest manifestations
of this is in the wearables category.
Wearables are incredibly popular right now as they track your health, fitness,
and sleep. What we’ve seen in our research is that consumers would love to have
a wearable that helps them with their nutrition or with weight management, but
there just aren’t offerings on the market today that are as easy to use as the
ones for health, fitness, and sleep.
If companies can come up with some kind of wearable offering that helps
consumers with nutrition in a meaningful way that is much more passive than
what’s on the market today, that could be really interesting and really help
people move the needle. The other thing that could be interesting and that we’re
already starting to see is weaving gen-AI-equipped recommendations into things
like diet plans, coaching regimes, and fitness plans to really help tailor those
plans to individual consumers.
GUT HEALTH
Roberta Fusaro: OK. I’m going to shift us away to one of our other categories or
topics: gut health. That honestly wasn’t an issue I had expected to find in the
report. I’m not sure why. I guess I don’t think a lot about gut health. Why is
this a popular topic right now?
Anna Pione: It is really interesting to see that gut health and digestive
supplements are some of the subcategories seeing more consistently strong growth
within that space. If we go back to our survey data, over 80 percent of
consumers in China, the UK, and the US consider gut health to be important, and
over 50 percent anticipate making it a higher priority over the next few years.
> Over 80 percent of consumers in China, the UK, and the US consider gut health
> to be important, and over 50 percent anticipate making it a higher priority
> over the next few years.
What we see in the US and China is that probiotic supplements in the form of a
vitamin or pill are the most popular form of treatment. In the UK, it’s more of
a nutrition-based approach, so we see consumers prioritizing probiotic-rich
foods such as yogurt or kombucha.
As we think about what the category could look like in the future, what we do
see is quite a few companies coming to market with at-home microbiome testing
that helps inform consumers of what their unique gut health and gut needs are.
And then they link that with more health-based offerings to meet those needs. In
many cases, these companies partner closely with medical professionals to help
inform their recommendations, and that links again with the trend that we saw on
the increasing importance and influence of the doctor’s recommendation when it
comes to consumers deciding what products to buy.
SLEEP
Roberta Fusaro: Excellent. So now sleep. This is something that I constantly
think about and never get enough of. And I imagine others are feeling that way.
What did you see in the research?
Anna Pione: Yeah, this one is very much “do as I say, not as I do,” because I
will be the first to admit that I think sleep is so important, and I do not
prioritize it nearly as much as I should in my life. The challenge we’ve seen
with consumers tackling their sleep, and one I’m sure we’re both well familiar
with, is just the sheer number of factors that can affect a good night’s sleep.
You have diet, exercise, caffeination, screen time, stress, and other lifestyle
factors. We’ve seen that it’s really hard for any one brand to bring an offering
to the market that helps consumers move the needle across all of those things.
They’re so interlinked.
This is where we get excited and say it’s not something that is necessarily
fully fleshed out on the market today. There is a massive opportunity, if a
company is able to really help consumers figure that out in a much more holistic
and comprehensive way.
Roberta Fusaro: What are some examples of interventions or treatments that are
becoming more popular? How are companies starting to tackle the sleep problem?
Anna Pione: We see some relatively mature subcategories within the sleep market.
Think of things like melatonin supplements or mattresses. There are quite a few
categories already that are sizable in scale and have a number of players. There
is probably some room still for innovation; we could see companies coming in
with new or different offerings that try to tweak what’s available and either
message consumers or incorporate new science that helps them meet their needs.
We’ve also seen a lot regarding things that help consumers create the
environment that’s most conducive to a good night’s sleep: a dark room without
distractions, the right type of lighting or lack thereof. So we are seeing a lot
of interesting innovation in the space, and it’s one we find so compelling
because sleep is the second-most-prioritized dimension behind health and because
of how much consumers expressed that what’s available on the market today isn’t
quite enough to meet their needs.
Roberta Fusaro: Taking the research as a whole, which of the trends did you find
most surprising?
Anna Pione: What we were really surprised by when we first did the research back
in 2020 was that “clean and natural” was actually beating out clinically backed
products in many subcategories. In supplements globally, for example, consumers
were more likely to say they’d prioritize clean and natural over clinical
effectiveness, if they were forced to choose between the two. What we’ve been
surprised by in more recent years is that the pendulum has really swung in the
other direction. The more recent research we saw is moving toward clinical
effectiveness and science backing being the most important priorities that
consumers have.
Roberta Fusaro: Any hypothesis for why that is the case?
Anna Pione: It’s just a recognition by consumers that they want the product
they’re taking to work. And that they’re taking it for a good reason. There are
a few subtrends underlying this.
One is that the inflation environment over the past couple of years has made
consumers increasingly conscious of what they spend their money on. They want to
make sure it works. The other subtrend we’re seeing is there is an element of a
baseline standard of clean ingredients.
We see, especially in the supplement and beauty spaces, that what consumers
expect is almost more table stakes at this point. But then, when they’re
thinking about what’s going to motivate them to make a purchase of this brand
over another, clinical effectiveness is going to move the needle.
IN-HOME CARE
Roberta Fusaro: Yeah. That makes sense. Bottom-line results. What’s changing
with the trend toward in-home care and at-home testing? I feel like it’s been
discussed for years.
Anna Pione: This concept of in-home care is one that gets me particularly
excited. If you think about what in-home care looked like prior to the pandemic,
it was a much more narrow, specific need state. You have over-the-counter
medicine and then you have things like insulin tests or blood pressure cuffs.
Whereas if a consumer had a specific condition and a specific doctor’s
recommendation to monitor it, they would. What we’ve seen change—and again, this
is another one that the pandemic has heavily influenced—is consumers using
at-home care as a means to more proactively manage and control their health. We
see this with the increasing use of telemedicine. This is again one where, you
know, prior to the pandemic, telemedicine did exist, but the pandemic really
normalized it and got consumers much more comfortable with accessing their
health via telemedicine for services where it made sense to do so.
The other area that I’ve seen really come into prevalence is this concept of
at-home testing. We’ve just seen a real increase in tests for things like STDs,
as well as preventative health needs—things like microbiome testing or testing
for different vitamin needs.
GEN AI AND WELLNESS
Roberta Fusaro: What’s the impact of gen AI on the wellness trends that we’ve
talked about here?
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Anna Pione: Gen AI is so interesting, in terms of how quickly it’s been evolving
and how quickly the different types of applications and use cases have really
sprung up in the past couple of years. As we mentioned earlier, the most
immediate and clear translation of gen AI to the wellness space is in some of
these connected devices and app-based coaching services, so it allows for that
hyper-personalization. You could see some interesting applications going forward
that are a little bit less front and center for the consumer. If you could use
gen AI in the development of medication, supplements, or over-the-counter
products that are more effective or more available for consumers, and if you use
gen AI techniques to speed up the research or clinical-testing process, that
could also be really interesting.
We may also see it in the beauty space, where gen AI could help consumers remove
some friction points about what type of skin care to recommend or could make
virtual try-on services more sophisticated—things like that.
WOMEN’S HEALTH TRENDS
Roberta Fusaro: McKinsey has done a ton of work on women’s health. How does this
research relate to the previous studies we’ve done?
Anna Pione: One thing that just really came through in our more recent research
is how critical women’s health is to the overall consumer health
landscape—especially from an investor and brand perspective. We’ve seen that the
women’s health space has been historically underserved and underfunded. But more
recently, we’ve been seeing much more focus and interest and awareness of the
importance of different subcategories—from menopause and period care to
pregnancy and fertility and general women’s health.
Menopause, in particular, is one that gets me really excited. We’ve seen a lot
of new supplements and offerings for both healthcare and more consumer-facing
facets to help people in that stage of their lives. Historically, this is
something that has affected women for a very long period of time in a very
concentrated and intense way, for which there have not been a lot of things to
help them through that process.
It’s a really underserved market, and now we’re seeing just much more
willingness to discuss, invest behind, and normalize what women are going
through during this stage. Therefore, it’s opened up a lot of opportunities for
brands to come in and meet those consumer needs.
Roberta Fusaro: This is critical, critical stuff. Anna, thank you for taking the
time to speak with us today. I am still going to ping you offline to talk about
my tracker and what I can do to improve the number of steps I’m getting every
day.
Anna Pione: Happy to talk to you about that.
Roberta Fusaro: Really appreciate you joining the podcast today.
Anna Pione: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RECOGNIZING SIGNS OF STRESS
Lucia Rahilly: Next up, McKinsey senior partner Gayatri Shenai shares the
humility it took to recognize that a colleague was in crisis.
Gayatri Shenai: During the pandemic, we were working through a project, and I
had a colleague from a European office on my team. Everything seemed to be
humming along really well. It was a dream project.
I remember one of my one-on-ones with this team member, where we were catching
up on how things were going, how he was feeling, and what we could do
differently. And he confided in me that he was staying up at night thinking
about the project. I brushed it aside at that time, thinking, you know, this
guy’s taking things way too seriously. My guidance to him was to chill a bit. I
encouraged him to not take things so seriously, to relax. In hindsight,
unfortunately, what I realized was that I had failed to catch the thread of a
mental health challenge.
It was not much later when he called me and said, “I have to leave. I have to
stop working. I’m grappling with almost no sleep over the last couple of weeks,
and I realize I need to seek professional help.”
The reason this story stays with me is that as a leader who prides herself on
being a people developer, on being people first, even I got it wrong. And I have
to pause and reflect on how much I am still learning about health and wellness
and the power of asking questions versus making assumptions.
The biggest advice I have for leaders is to ask questions, to probe, and to seek
out resources, because collectively, we can have a better answer than any
individual can.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Anna Pione is a partner in McKinsey’s New York office, where Gayatri Shenai is a
senior partner. Lucia Rahilly is the global editorial director of McKinsey
Global Publishing and is based in the New York office, and Roberta Fusaro is an
editorial director in the Boston office.
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