The Global Wellness Summit has announced its top wellness trends of 2022, covering topics from technology and travel to closing the gap in women's health and addressing toxic body standards in men. This report identifies major shifts that the wellness industry can expect to see in the coming year.
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The Global Wellness Summit has announced its top wellness trends of 2022, covering topics from technology and travel to closing the gap in women's health and addressing toxic body standards in men. This report identifies major shifts that the wellness industry can expect to see in the coming year.
“If it’s always daunting to predict trends in the fast-moving wellness space, it’s especially so two years into a pandemic where the long-promised ‘post-pandemic world’ is becoming visible but is repeatedly delayed,” said Susie Ellis, GWS chair and CEO. “One thing that this forecast makes clear is that the future of wellness will be anything but a ‘restart’ of 2019. What consumers now need most, what they perceive as ‘true wellness,’ has profoundly changed.”
1. Dirt-y Wellness
With the world currently being in a huge soil crisis, regenerative agriculture will really come to life. This includes techniques that restore the soil's biodiversity—something that's already a hot topic in farming. "Regen" or "soil certified" is expected to be the next big food label that consumers will look out for.
At wellness resorts, there is an uptick in some kind of farm aspect. An increasingly number of properties are now participating in regenerative farming, and it is becoming as important as spa and fitness. There are whole menus of farm and wellness experiences being created, which give more of a "soil-to-guest" feel instead of "farm-to-table."
2. Toxic Muscularity Comes Clean
When discussing body image, typically the female form comes to mind, but research proves this is no longer solely a women's issue. In April 2021, a survey by a UK male suicide prevention charity and Instagram found that half of men aged 16-40 had struggled with their mental health because of how they feel about their bodies.
Between anabolic-androgenic steroid and image/performance enhancement drugs being wildly overused among athletes, actors and action figures, men are holding themselves up against unrealistic expectations for their own physique. "Toxic muscularity" is contributing to the rise in disordered eating and muscle dysmorphia, also known as reverse anorexia or bigorexia, among men. The latter is a pathological preoccupation that you are not muscular enough, no matter what your body may look like.
3. From Wellness Tech to Technological Wellness
To accomplish this, there needs to be a new collaboration between technology and the wellness industry. Consumers will start treating their tech intake like their food intake, i.e., taking care to understand how it affects the mind, body and overall well-being. The wellness industry can help balance overconsumption of technology and plays a role in the conversation about technology's negative toll on health.
4. Senior Living Disrupted
For years, people have been saying that 60 is the new 40, but it turns out that 90 will be the new 40 within a decade. People are retiring later and focusing more on being active and engaged with personal growth at an older age. The new generation feels healthier and more youthful, and they do not want to be defined by their age or segregated by it.
To meet the changing expectations in these adults, it's predicted that senior living will become a thing of the past and "intentional intergenerationality" will take its place. This is already being practices in the world's Blue Zones like Sardinia, Italy, and Okinawa, Japan. These are also the places where people tend to live the longest and age the healthiest.
This trend is all about examining new models and methods of intergenerational living to help reduce age segregation while increasing social connections, decreasing loneliness, and resulting in better health and overall well-being.
5. Wellness Travel: Seekers, Welcome
New travel experiences will tap into a sense of purpose, a desire to grow creatively and intellectually and flourish in new environments. Seekers will be exploring the wisdom of the ancients in indigenous travel experiences; learning to grow their own food; expressing their creativity in art classes; and giving back to academia in citizen social programs. In 2022, it is clear just how interconnected the wellness and travel industries truly are, with each trip becoming an opportunity for travelers to reclaim their lives, improve their health and discover their purpose.
“We are at the dawn of what will be the most transformative era of travel in our lifetime. Our traveling choices will be more intentional going forward," says Cathy Feliciano-Chon, founder and managing director, CatchOn.
6. Innovative Tech Closing the Gender Gap in Medical Research
With many women's health conditions being underfunded and under-researched, there have been major issues in healthcare for women, including difficulty receiving a correct diagnosis and getting treatment for chronic conditions. In 2022, you can expect to see startups and technology giants continue to expand and improve research data through artificial intelligence (AI), smartphone apps, wearables and virtual trials.
The research sector has traditionally had a hard time gathering participants, but virtual trials have allowed working moms, caregivers and many others better access to trials. These advancements allow for better representation in trials, quicker access to participants and more longitudinal data. Research institutions are also beginning to show interest by partnering with a wide range of startups.
7. Urban Bathhouses & Wellness Playgrounds
Cities around the globe are suddenly making the pursuit of wellness accessible, affordable and inclusive, whether it's renovated bathhouses featuring hydrothermal bathing, large-scale wellness water resorts or public parks where nature meets art and wellness. Communal bathing that hearkens back to European and Asian bathing cultures are inspiring an urban bathhouse renaissance around the globe.
In 2022, you can expect to see all of this as well as new public playgrounds that merge nature and art with wellness to transform cityscapes through manmade beachfronts, scenic boardwalks, pop-up wellness classes and even water sports becoming available in unexpected places.
8. Next-Gen Naturalism
This 2022 wellness trend is all about the long overdue return to self-reliance. The two major drivers of this trend are the supply chain disruption and awareness of unsustainable consumption. These events are turning people to practical survival, where they're relearning how to work with nature and other ancient skills that have been lost over time.
An increased interest in outdoor survival skills and an ability to grow your own food are two major ways this trend is coming to life. With wellness, it means a "back to basics" approach that simplifies how we live and how we consume. It has people focusing on the natural world and ancient practices.
“There is a tendency to pit a regenerative life against the modern and the technological, but what is actually happening is that they are coming together. I think the survivalist trend is a keen new desire to be more self-reliant," says Beth McGroarty, GWS/GWI VP research and forecasting.
9. Health & Wellness Coaching Gets Certified
With the world spending $8.3 trillion on healthcare every year and $4.4 trillion on wellness, it begs the question as to why haven't coaches devoted to helping people make healthy changes been at the center of helping fight the tide of chronic disease. In 2022, the certified health and wellness coach (HWC) is finally here.
What an HWC does is utterly unique. They're healthcare professionals trained in evidence-based, nuanced conversational techniques that get people developing the intrinsic motivation and confidence to hit realistic well-being goals. The biggest difference between these coaches and doctors is that they spend time (roughly 50 minutes a week for three months on average) to help their clients find motivation from within.
“These coaches that I’m talking about do something very laser focused. It is all about conversations that get people identifying and then making plans for behavior changes. What they’re seeing is so many different professionals really moving to get certified in wellness coaching. We are going to need tens of thousands of these people really quick," says McGroarty.
10. Wellness Welcomes the Metaverse
Expect to see unprecedented synergies between the technology, wellness and health industries. Sectors like fitness, beauty, healthy eating, mental wellness, wellness tourism, spas and more are introducing new technologies and virtual worlds that deliver a far more immersive experience and radically transform how wellness is delivered to global consumers.
“The thing that concerns me is that the wellness world is going to say that it’s not a good idea or be negative about it. I’m hoping we don’t take that position, and instead we take the position of: Let’s help this in a healthy way. I’m hopeful is that there will be a lot of positive out of this," says Ellis.
