OBESITY:

In a world with abundant choice, we have opened ourselves up to innovation that enables health and well-being, but we have also opened ourselves up to bad habits. Sedentary lifestyles and increasing food consumption (particularly of foods high in fat and sugar and low in nutritional value) are leading to high levels of obesity all over the world. Despite increasing awareness, over 65% of adults in the United States are overweight. In addition, only 31% of adults exercise regularly and fewer than 50% of children exercise enough. Obesity is an exceptionally costly condition that leads to other long-term care ailments like diabetes and high blood pressure. Obesity has become a political and social issue, putting food and beverage companies under rising pressure from governments, health organizations, consumer associations and the media to behave as better corporate citizens. Companies are being asked to find new products and services that not only reduce ingredients contributing to obesity (like sugar) but also help to make us healthier. Other chronic conditions (like congestive heart failure, asthma, etc.) have also created similar innovation challenges and opportunities. Companies have responded by offering innovative approaches to prevent and treat chronic diseases so that consumers can opt to stay healthier, look better, and live longer.

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CHANGING LIFESTYLES:

Despite good intentions to lead a healthy life, many people are trying to achieve better health while maintaining a hectic agenda, as schedules become increasingly full and frantic. Companies are helping consumers to cope with their packed schedules by figuring out ways to tend quickly to multiple aspects of an individual’s healthcare needs. Many healthcare organizations are exploring new ways to create more efficient healthcare delivery. One of the most popular ways can be described as “one-stop health care.” As the name implies, health consumers can find everything they need in one spot. But the type of “one-stop care” varies with the consumer. Consumers looking for a specific kind of therapy or treatment will be happy to find complementary therapeutic providers for a particular health issue (e.g., services for disease prevention) that were once scattered over a geographic area now assembled into one central area where they all can be easily accessed. But there is another kind of “one-stop” health clinic where, for instance, low-income consumers can get more comprehensive healthcare at one low cost. An example of this is the CVS MinuteClinic.

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CHANGING VALUES AND BEHAVIORS:

While practitioners of Western medicine are finding ways to serve their patients more efficiently, consumers who are not completely satisfied with their MDs’ prescriptions are turning more to “alternative” therapies or “complementary medicine.” These therapies include a wide range of practices: herbalism, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, iridology, homeopathy, and many more. Many alternative therapy providers prefer the term ‘complementary’ because they don’t see themselves as a substitute for conventional medicine; rather, their approaches offer something that can be used along with more standard approaches. Going even further beyond the realms of scientific and alternative medicine, more and more people are looking to spiritual cures to physical problems, believing that the secret of well-being and happiness is found in cultivating spiritual values or “sprituality.” (See the case of the “Art of Living.”) Today, the trend in spiritual healthiness is more weighted toward creating a foundation for an overall healthy and optimistic lifestyle. The number of people using alternative therapies is rising, and this is no doubt influencing conventional medical practices as well as innovations in the well-being industry.