One of The Hartman Group’s primary areas of expertise has been—and remains—the study of health and wellness. We’ve been there from the start. We are the de facto standard when it comes to customized research in this space, and we are the leaders when it comes to trends and “ahead-of-the-curve” thinking about health and wellness.

To understand how health and wellness has reached the point to where, today, virtually every consumer participates in health and wellness on some level, it is important to provide a bit of clarity about what we mean when we say “health and wellness.”

Consumers think, live and shop differently, depending on where they are within the “World” of Health and Wellness. Over the past decade, we have observed a shift away from a perfunctory, ascetic, reactive and compliant notion of wellness to one that is more experiential, positive, holistic, proactive and self-assessed. There has been a cultural shift – now complete for all intents and purposes – from “health” to “quality of life”; from reactive health to proactive wellness.  

More importantly, this lifestyle did not evolve slowly over the past 100 years as if it were a constant force of American life. Health and wellness can trace its roots to a very specific cultural movement that flourished with the Baby Boomer cohort, and its importance and enduring impact on American culture stem from its beginnings as a social movement.

The social movement carried with it a collective discussion about the way we wanted to live, how to effect change and how to transform the world around us, as well as how we should eat. This was the soul that drove the aspiration for a better way of life.

The movement’s ideology took time to evolve and ferment before working its way out of the grassroots movement locales of Austin, Ann Arbor, Boulder, Portland and Seattle and into the broader population.

The health and wellness movement evolved during the 1970s and 1980s, although mainstream America was all but oblivious to the emerging lifestyle principles. As American culture transitioned into the 1990s, the original movement’s spirit and ideology began to spread into mainstream culture. It was not uncommon during this period for our cultural anthropologists to find Dr. Weil’s books among others lining bookshelves of ordinary American households.  

Consumers were also becoming increasingly curious about the assorted products and offerings found within natural food retailers such as Wild Oats, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. In addition to an uptick in interest in vitamins and herbal supplements, consumers began exploring homeopathy and aromatherapy. This surge of sales in the vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements category (VMHS), coupled with the growing consumer interest in health and wellness, helped propel the fledgling natural products industry into the mainstream.

With the dawn of the new millennium, the spirit that originally pushed health and wellness out of Boulder and into mainstream American households finally began to mature into a more fully realized incarnation of wellness. And, by the turn of the century, nearly every hospital, insurance provider or health clinic had some version of a wellness strategy or program that was communicated to their clients (i.e., consumers). The medical community was instrumental in helping move the needle from “health” to “wellness.”

It took American consumers a number of years to begin to understand how to incorporate some of these principles in a synergistic manner that didn’t require too much effort in their daily lives. After all, this is a lifestyle we’re talking about here, and changing one’s daily way of life takes time.

In fact, if there was a single dimension that distinguished the health version of health and wellness from the wellness version, it would be the holistic approach to well-being, the idea of being able to incorporate several components of a wellness lifestyle into one’s daily life with relative ease and little inconvenience. For those originally leading health and wellness into the mainstream, holistic was all about an integrated approach to medicine as well as spiritual healing, something more akin to a Zen-like approach to wellness.

Now it is much more about keeping things together in a seamless way.

Two other important dimensions that began to surface as wellness evolved included emotional and spiritual well-being. These developments represented the first time that mainstream American consumers began to think (at least in any serious way) about health and wellness as something practiced beyond the physical confines of the body.

This was a big break, leading the way to the rise of propositions such as sustainability and transparency. Once health and wellness was unleashed from the physicality of the body, consumers began to think in the same manner—and with the same principles—about things like our planet, our societies, our organizations and our families. Importantly, this was a much more complex proposition than a straightforward desire to save the environment.

Most importantly, it was at this point in the evolution of health and wellness (which is just as strong today) that FOOD and BEVERAGE became front staged—taking precedence over all other dimensions and behaviors within this arena.

Health & Wellness: Imagining Possibility 

Consumers have been playing in this aspirational lifestyle that we call health and wellness for the better part of 20 years. What began as a movement quickly transitioned into an industry. Relative to historical and cultural developments, that’s a really long time. For, as we all know, a lot has happened since the early 1990s.  

Thinking about all these changes as a whole, we believe that the health and wellness lifestyle is evolving into something more. Something beyond.  

We have increasingly come to understand this space as something we refer to as possibility.

Make no mistake; health and wellness are as important as ever. It’s just that their colors have changed, their roles have shifted. Health is no longer a goal in and of itself. Health is about maintaining the ability to enjoy a higher quality of life.

We have learned that at some level—however diffuse and/or removed from the original spirit—almost every consumer aspires to participate in a health and wellness lifestyle. In many cases, however, the hurdle is that they simply lack access to the “tools of the trade.” So moving forward, we believe it is imperative to erase all lingering stereotypes from the historical trajectory of health and wellness (only for the overly educated, highly affluent and upper-middle class). Everyone wants to play in a world of possibility. To think otherwise serves only to limit opportunities.

Harvey Hartman, Founder & Chairman, The Hartman Group

Harvey has earned a reputation among his many Fortune 500 clients for accurately translating how shifts in consumer behavior can be converted into solutions for overcoming growth and innovation challenges. Since founding the company in 1989, Harvey's been the soul, inspiration and charismatic force guiding The Hartman Group's success. Under his leadership, The Hartman Group has become recognized as the leading authority on consumer culture in America. 

Laurie Demeritt, CEO, The Hartman Group

As CEO, Laurie Demeritt provides strategic and operational leadership for The Hartman Group’s research and consulting teams. Laurie and The Hartman Group’s analysts are recognized for their unique ability to blend primary qualitative, quantitative and trends research to help clients develop successful marketing strategies by understanding the subtle complexities of how consumers live, shop and use products, and how to apply that understanding in ways that lead to purchase.

Questions or comments? Contact Blaine Becker, Senior Director of Marketing, at: blaine@hartman-group.com