Replace probiotics and clinically effective products in place of "clean and natural": the latest McKinsey research on the future of wellness provides a snapshot of how consumers around the world, from all regions and generations, approach their health and wellness and the types of health interventions they prioritize.

In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey partner Anna Pione joins editorial director Roberta Fusaro to discuss what is trending, why, and where innovation is needed.

In the second segment, McKinsey senior partner Gayatri Shenai says she failed to recognize a colleague's cry for help. The McKinsey Podcast, whose text was provided to Meat.Milk. editorial office, was hosted by Roberta Fusaro and Lucia Rahilly.

Understanding the consumer wellness space

Roberta Fusaro: I have so many questions for you today. For example, why I've become addicted to my fitness tracker. But let's start with the numbers. McKinsey recently published its latest research on the future of wellness. We spoke with 5,000 consumers from the US, UK, and China about how they think about wellness. What were we trying to measure with this report?

Anna Pione: We started this research in 2020 because we received a lot of questions from investors and companies about this concept of wellness. Is it something that would be sustainable? Is it something they should consider investing in?

So we decided to launch this research to really understand how consumers around the world approach their health and wellness and how these have evolved, what they are looking for, and therefore how companies and brands can better evolve their offerings to meet consumer needs.

Roberta Fusaro: What are the main categories in which consumers invest and how much do they invest?

Anna Pione: We see a lot of consumer investment, and we see that prioritization continues to increase. We segment wellness into six different dimensions: better health, fitness, sleep, mindfulness, appearance, and nutrition.

Roberta Fusaro: Is wellness an issue equally for citizens around the globe, or are there huge regional differences?

Anna Pione: We knew that consumers are 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, this year, 82% of consumers in the US, 73% in the UK, and 87% in China reported that wellness is a top or very important priority in their lives.

And what we find even more striking is that the focus continues to grow. More than half of consumers say they prioritize health more than they did a year ago.

Roberta Fusaro: Do these health priorities and spending on health vary by age or demographics? Do we see differences between, say, Gen Z, millennials, and baby boomers?

Anna Pione: All the consumers we interviewed think about their well-being and prioritize it. That being said, what we have consistently seen in our research is that millennials are the most enthusiastic generation when it comes to both spending and participating in different types of product and service offerings. But this year, what really caught our attention was that Gen Z has become quite prominent, and we believe this is a group to watch in the future.

Roberta Fusaro: Interesting. The report is rich with data on current trends and identifies seven areas where we see technological advances and increased consumer interest and innovation. We only have so much time today, so let's focus on four of these areas specifically: healthy aging, weight management, gut health, and sleep. How much of a priority is healthy aging for consumers based on our research findings?

Healthy Aging

Anna Pione: Healthy aging is a very high priority. What we have seen is that this matters both from a societal perspective and a consumer perspective. From a societal perspective, the old-age dependency ratio is expected to triple between 1950 and 2050. The McKinsey Health Institute suggests that improving quality of life while managing age-related diseases will be crucial and that, to achieve this, we will truly need a holistic approach to make significant progress. In terms of consumers, we see that over 60% of people said it is extremely or very important to purchase longevity products, and 70% plan to buy more products in the future.

 This has been one that has appeared time and again in our research as a critical need for consumers. It's one that matters both from society's perspective and from the consumers' perspective. In our survey, we see that 60% of consumers are seeking a weight management solution, and over half of them are looking to lose ten or more kilograms.

This is something that people have at the forefront and want to prioritize, but it's very hard to act on this and make those changes. And here we see opportunities for companies and brands to intervene and help consumers achieve their goals.

Roberta Fusaro: What kind of opportunities are we talking about? What weight loss interventions resonate with people?

Anna Pione: Fitness has always been at the forefront of the list in terms of things people try when looking to lose weight, and that's something we've seen in the past and expect to continue. There's a very established link between the two categories.

Historically, other types of interventions in the category have been somewhat more mature. We've seen things like weight loss programs and supplements as much more established, mature categories - quite large, but not in a growth stage.

Maybe five to ten or more years ago, we saw a few new offerings for things like juice cleanses that became much more popular and easily accessible, as well as healthier meal kits.

What has changed more recently is prescription medications. There has been a real evolution of the category in the last two years. When we did our research, prescription-based weight loss offerings, at least in the US, were the most appreciated in terms of effectiveness.

It will be interesting to look for complementary offers of products and services that could emerge to help consumers meet their health and nutrition needs while taking GLP-1 prescription medications, as well as supplements: things like nutritional bars that help consumers meet their macro needs, lifestyle coaching services that help consumers make sure they get the right nutrients, or fitness routines around their medications.

In parallel, here I would tie in a few of the trends we've seen in our research, such as consumers using biomonitoring to truly understand their health and adapt their activities to optimize it better, as well as personalization and, especially, generative AI as a tool to help companies better personalize their offerings. One of the biggest manifestations of this is in the wearables category.

Wearable materials 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 nutrition or weight management, but there simply aren't offerings on the market today that are as easy to use as those for health, fitness, and sleep.

If companies can come up with a kind of wearable offering that significantly helps consumers with nutrition in a much more passive way than what's on the market today, it could be truly interesting and could really help people move the needle.

Another thing that could be interesting and that we're already starting to see is weaving AI-equipped recommendations into things like diet plans, workout regimens, and fitness plans to truly help tailor these plans for individual consumers.

Anna Pione: It's very interesting to note that gut health and digestive supplements are some of the subcategories consistently experiencing stronger growth in that space. If we go back to the data from our survey, over 80% of consumers in China, the UK, and the US consider gut health important, and over 50% anticipate it becoming a higher priority in the next few years.

What we see in the US and China is that probiotic supplements in the form of vitamins or pills are the most popular form of treatment. In the UK, it's more of a nutrition-based approach, so we see consumers prioritizing foods rich in probiotics, such as yogurt or kombucha.

As we think about how the category might look in the future, what we see is quite a few companies coming to market with at-home microbiome testing, which helps inform consumers about their gut health and their unique needs.

And then linking that with more health-based offerings to meet those needs. In many cases, these companies work closely with healthcare professionals to help inform their recommendations, and that ties back again to the trend we've seen regarding the increasing importance and influence of doctor recommendations when it comes to consumers deciding what products to purchase.

Sleep well

Roberta Fusaro: Excellent. So now you sleep. It's something I think about constantly and never tire of. And I imagine others feel the same way. What did you see in the research?

Anna Pione: Yes, it's very much a case of "do as I say, not as I do" because I'll be the first to admit that I believe sleep is so important and I don't prioritize it as much as I should in my own life. The challenge we've seen with consumers addressing their sleep is one that I'm sure we're both well familiar with, and that's just the sheer number of factors that can affect good sleep.

You have diet, exercise, caffeine intake, screen time, stress, and other lifestyle factors. We've seen it's very hard for any brand to bring to market an offering that helps consumers move the needle across all these things. They're so interconnected.

Here we're excited and we say it's not something that's necessarily fully developed in the market today. There's a huge opportunity if a company is able to really help consumers figure it out in a much more holistic and comprehensive way.

Roberta Fusaro: What are some examples of interventions or treatments that are becoming increasingly popular? How are companies starting to address the issue of sleep?

Anna Pione: We see some relatively mature subcategories in the sleep market. Think about things like melatonin supplements or mattresses. There are already quite a few categories that are considerable in scale and have a number of players.

There's probably still room for innovation; we might see companies coming up with new or different offerings that try to tweak what's available and either message consumers differently or incorporate new science to help meet their needs.

We've also seen a lot of things helping consumers create the most conducive environment for good sleep: a dark room without distractions, the right type of lighting or lack thereof. So, we're seeing a lot of interesting innovations in the space, and it's one we consider so compelling because sleep is the second most prioritized dimension behind health, and because of how much consumers have expressed that what's available in the market today just isn't sufficient to meet their needs.

Roberta Fusaro: Taking the research overall, which trend surprised you the most?

Anna Pione: What really surprised us when we first did the research back in 2020 was that "clean and natural" was beating clinically backed products in many subcategories. In the case of supplements globally, for example, consumers were more likely to say they would prioritize clean and natural efficacy over clinical efficacy if forced to choose between the two. What we've been surprised by in recent years is that the pendulum has really swung the other way. The more recent research we've seen is leaning towards clinical efficacy and scientific support being the most important priorities for consumers.

Roberta Fusaro: Any hypothesis as to why that is?

Anna Pione: It's just a recognition by consumers that they want the product they're taking to work. And they're taking it for a valid reason. There are a few sub-trends underlying this.

One is that the inflationary environment over the past couple of years has made consumers increasingly conscious of what they're spending their money on. They want to make sure it works. The other sub-trend we see is that there's an element of a baseline standard of clean ingredients.

We see, especially in the supplement and beauty spaces, that consumers are almost more mass stakes right now. But then when they think about what's going to motivate them to purchase this brand over another, clinical efficacy will move the needle.

At-Home Care

Roberta Fusaro: Yes. That makes sense. Core outcomes. What's changing with the trend of at-home care and at-home testing? It feels like it's been talked about for years.

Anna Pione: This concept of at-home care is one that really excites me. If you think about what at-home care looked like before the pandemic, it was a much narrower, specific need state. You had over-the-counter medications, and then you had things like insulin tests or blood pressure cuffs.

While if a consumer had a specific condition and a specific doctor's recommendation to monitor it, they would have it. What we've seen changing – and again, this is another one that the pandemic has heavily influenced – is that consumers are using at-home care as a means to manage and control their health more proactively.

We see this with the increasing use of telemedicine. This is again one where, you know, before the pandemic, telemedicine existed, but the pandemic really normalized it and made consumers much more comfortable accessing their health through telemedicine for services where it made sense to do so.

The other area we've really seen in prevalence is this concept of at-home testing. We've just observed a real uptick in testing for things like sexually transmitted diseases, as well as preventive health needs - things like microbiome testing or testing for various vitamin deficiencies.

Roberta Fusaro: What is the impact of Gen AI on the wellness trends we've discussed here?

Anna Pione: Gen AI is so interesting in terms of how quickly it has evolved and how rapidly different types of applications and use cases have really emerged over the past couple of years. As I mentioned earlier, the most immediate and clear translation of Gen AI into the wellness space is in some of these connected devices and app-based coaching services, thus enabling this hyper-personalization.

You might see some interesting applications in the future that are a little less front and center to the consumer. If you could use Gen AI in the development of drugs, supplements, or over-the-counter products that are more effective or more accessible to consumers and if you use Gen AI techniques to speed up the research or clinical testing process, that could also be truly exciting.

We might see it also in the beauty space, where Gen AI could help consumers eliminate some friction points regarding the type of skincare to recommend or could make virtual try-on services more sophisticated - things like that.

Trends in Women's Health

Roberta Fusaro: McKinsey has done a lot of work in the field of women's health. How does this research tie in with the previous studies we've done?

Anna Pione: One thing that has really stood out in our more recent research is how critical women's health is to the overall consumer health landscape, especially from the perspective of investors and brands. We've seen that the women's health space has historically been underserved and underfunded.

But more recently, we've noticed much more attention, interest, and awareness of the importance of different subcategories - from menopause and menstrual care to pregnancy and fertility and women's overall health.

Menopause, in particular, is one that really excites me. We've seen a lot of supplements and new offerings both for medical care and for 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 time in a very concentrated and intense way, for which there haven't been many things to help them through that process.

It's a truly underserved market, and now we're seeing much more availability to discuss, invest behind, and normalize what women go through in this stage. Therefore, a lot of opportunities have opened up for brands to come in and meet those consumer needs.

Roberta Fusaro: These are critical, critical things. Anna, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. I'll reach out offline to talk about my tracker and what I can do to improve the number of steps I take each day.

Anna Pione: Happy to talk to you about that.

Roberta Fusaro: I really appreciate you joining the podcast today.

Anna Pione: Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Recognizing Signs of Stress

Lucia Rahilly: Next, McKinsey's Senior Partner, Gayatri Shenai, shares the humility it took to recognize that a colleague was in crisis.

Gayatri Shenai: During the pandemic, I was working on a project and had a colleague from a European office on my team. Everything seemed to be humming along beautifully. It was a dream project.

I remember one of the one-on-ones with this team member, where we checked in on how things were going, how he was feeling, and what we could do differently. And he confided in me that he stays up at night thinking about the project. I brushed it off at that time, thinking, you know, this guy takes things too seriously. My guidance for him was to chill out a bit. I encouraged him not to take things so seriously, to relax. In hindsight, unfortunately, what I realized was that I had failed to pick up on a mental health challenge.

It wasn't much later when he called me and said, "I need to leave. I need to stop working. I've had almost no sleep in the last two weeks, and I realize I need to seek professional help."

The reason why 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 need to pause and reflect on how much I still learn about health and wellness and about the power of asking questions versus making assumptions.

The biggest advice I have for leaders is to ask questions, to investigate, and to seek resources, because collectively, we can have a better answer than any one individual can. (Photo: Freepik)