The health and wellness market is a booming industry. People are buying health products such as targeted vitamins and minerals and wellness services such as massage and acupuncture so as to ensure physical wholeness and overall good health. The motivation comes from the improved knowledge that the modern man has about his body and environment.
The public has obtained access to health education and promotion through various media, and as a result, there is a rapid transformation on how we have looked at health and wellness these last 30-40 years. A few decades ago, the house-call doctor who had a strong educational background but an equally strong intuitive knowledge went the way of the dodo, to be replaced by institutionalized “Big Health” that has proven over the years to be faceless, uncompassionate, and ridiculously expensive.
In the meantime, we as a people have been exposed to theories of health and wellness from the Far East and our own ancient times, and we’ve come to recognize that perhaps there’s more to staying healthy than popping pills and getting broken bones set.
Health and wellness products have indeed been in demand over the last few years, and this is due in part to the exposure they have received through the media. We see health issues addressed in internet websites, magazines, books, newsletters and even on television, where Oprah’s ‘Doctor Oz’ now has his own show, and ‘The Doctors’ is a common daytime panel show about health and wellness.
Health journals are cropping up, even major news magazines such as Time, Newsweek and Focus have contributed a lot of articles, editorials and special issues to nutrition and wellness.
Economists in the United States suggest that in the years to come, the wellness business will be one of the leading contributors of economic growth. In fact, in this country, the sales of this industry have already reached $200 million and will soon match the sales of the ‘traditional’ health care sector!
The health and wellness industry is all about selling wellness products and services which improve the health of their customers. Since there is a wide range of products and services included in this scope, we can divide them into a variety following types of health and wellness businesses. Here’s a partial list:
- Voluntary medicine – examples under this type are lifestyle drugs and plastic cosmetic surgery.
- Wellness resources – these are the information segment of the society, or media informing the people regarding wellness products and services.
- Wellness insurance – financial resources for a large number of wellness services and preventative medicines, including chiropractic care and even acupuncture.
- Nutritional services and products – including vitamin supplements, nutritionist, local organic food stores, etc.
- Fitness services and products – including massage therapists, spas, chiropractor, etc.
- Preventative health care – treating, modifying or controlling health risk factors
- Alternative health care – this includes meditation, yoga, herbalism, homeopathy, hypnosis, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, naturopathy, etc.
- Health and wellness tourism – characterized by customers who would use traveling expenses to look for medical tourism hubs across the globe, offering products and services for these health and wellness seekers.
As you can see, the health and wellness industry has grown significantly, thanks to the huge support it has obtained from several other sectors. New opportunities have opened for health and wellness initiatives, whether it be on the side of selling products and services or in the dissemination of valuable health and wellness information.
The industry is indeed a huge network of products and services, all together with a common theme of being the answer to the sicknesses and diseases that are growing rampant in our society today. Many of these are caused by industries that sell unhealthy goods and commodities. All the types of health and wellness businesses have blossomed in order to come to our rescue.
Because of all of this blooming and blossoming, if you’re an entrepreneur looking to start a business, a health and wellness business is an excellent choice — the competition might look stiff, but it’s an industry where the consumer is trained to be suspicious of success and look for the local, ‘little guy’…which is exactly where you could fit in!