Wellness is a belief system now, and 78% want control

The next time a wellness trend tells you to stare at the sun, notice what it is really selling. The pitch rarely stops at healing light. It is a claim about hidden knowledge, suppressed by experts, offered to people who want control back.

That shift is the big finding in a new Ipsos report: wellness has outgrown shelves, shakes and step counters. It now behaves like a cultural belief system, with its own rules for what counts as credible, pure and worth pursuing.

More than a market

The wellness economy is valued at US$6.3 trillion globally. But the number undersells the story. Wellness now shapes how people eat, sleep, exercise, read information and judge expertise.

The behavioural reasons are not mysterious. In Ipsos research, 67% globally say it takes too long to get a doctor’s appointment. Meanwhile, 78% want more control over their health decisions, and more than two-thirds already look for health information themselves instead of relying only on medical professionals.

When institutions feel slow and distant, people look elsewhere. That elsewhere is often a feed.

Authority moves to the algorithm

Health information is increasingly filtered through creators and online communities. Ipsos found that 48% of people first heard about GLP-1 drugs on social media, versus 20% from medical professionals.

That has clear benefits: peer knowledge can reduce stigma and surface lived experience. It also has a cost. The line between evidence and opinion gets blurry, and misinformation can travel with the same emotional weight as a doctor’s advice.

Wellness content often adds a moral frame, too. Purity, naturalness and discipline become markers of a “good” choice. In the report’s ethnographic work, consumers described confusion about ingredients, safety and whom to trust. Health becomes a project of self-optimisation, where tiredness or anxiety can feel like personal failure.

What brands should do

The opportunity is bigger than selling more greens powder. Wellness sticks around because it gives people a sense of meaning, order and agency. Treating it as a culture, not a category, changes the marketing task.

Start here:

• Sell clarity, not fear. Use ingredient and evidence transparency to reduce uncertainty instead of adding another threat to worry about.
• Respect shifting authority. Meet consumers where they now learn, from creators to communities, with credible and easy-to-share information.
• Make the healthier choice easier. Ipsos notes Tetra Pak’s 2023 Index found 51% of consumers think manufacturers and brands are responsible for providing healthy food, ahead of farmers, producers and government.
• Stay evidence-linked. If you borrow wellness aesthetics, don’t blur science and storytelling.

Wellness won’t be dismissed. For marketers, the question is not whether to participate, but whether your brand adds structure or more noise.

Source: Ipsos