Is it Trendy to be Healthy? Or Healthy to be Trendy?

Ever since 1982 when Jane Fonda took working out to the next level, Americans seem more than willing to follow the latest health and fitness craze. While we no longer must wear leg warmers and leotards to participate, we are increasingly being marketed new approaches to help lose weight, get heart healthy, reduce stress or another gazillion things that will make us fit, calm, happier, or at least close to being healthy. Although there are many options that claim to improve our well-being, less than 3 percent of Americans meet the basic qualifications for a “healthy lifestyle” according to a study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings (4/2016). So we wondered, are Americans taking notice of the most recent trends? Do we really want to become a better “us”? To better understand who was following the latest fads in health and wellness this year, we used the Ipsos Omnibus to examine today’s lifestyle health trends.

From making a bad habit appear less detrimental, like e-cigarettes, to calming our headspace with Transcendental Meditation (TM), we have a variety of options to choose from. Surely you have noticed that many women running errands, or even sitting next to you at work, are wearing yoga apparel. Do all these yoga pant owners actually participate in the ancient practice that can cure whatever ails us? Or is it a fashion trend/statement? Maybe it’s just the optics of looking like they practice yoga? Let’s find out…

Americans are being more conscientious about improving their “mind wellness” than ever before. Approximately one in three have already started to take care of their mental health by either practicing mindfulness, meditation, limiting social media, limiting time on mobile devices and/or doing yoga, which helps the mind and body. These trends will continue since many say they plan to start one or more of the activities in the future. This is especially true among Millennials where their participation rate is significantly higher for most activities.

When asked what new services, practices or items they have tried or plan to try, 79% of Americans said they are or will be consuming root vegetables. Apparently, people are taking note of all the health benefits in this new “miracle food”. But wait, haven’t we been eating carrots and sweet potatoes forever?!

Cleansing diets and juicing remain popular but are no longer the leading trends. Regular cigarette smoking has declined significantly since 2005, but unfortunately, 19% of Americans have tried e-cigarettes and 9% plan on trying them in future. As expected, Millennials are most likely to use with 45% saying have or plan to use e-cigarettes in future.

So is good old exercise still around? Americans answered a resounding YES! When asked how frequently they exercised for at least 20 minutes at a time, only 11 % responded never. Most (71%) say they exercise at least once a week and 14% even said daily.

Because Americans appear to place importance on being healthy, we wondered how many were actually taking steps to achieve it. Forty percent indicated they made a New Year’s resolution to either improve their diet and/or exercise in 2017 and that number jumped to sixty percent for both Millennials and those with children in their household. When asked in February if they have stayed with their healthy diet and/or exercise resolution so far this year, three out of four (75%) indicated they have. With men and Millennials being significantly most successful at staying on course.

It may seem cool to be healthy, calm and mindful since the Millennials are doing it. However, they are also trying e-cigarettes so maybe things aren’t changing so much after all. Americans like to look and feel like they are doing all the right things. Maybe some of these new habits will become long term practices. It looks like regular vigorous exercise may actually be here to stay, even without leg warmers.