MARIA PAVLIDOU
Healthy Marketing Team- HMT , Barcelona, Spain

Abstract

Mental well-being is on the rise; more people than ever struggle with anxiety, stress and depression. The Healthy Marketing Team (HMT) has identified mental well-being as the number one health trend affecting all food and health choices, from supplements to food and beverages. Consumers realize their choices can make a positive impact on their own health and the planet and want to contribute to a better future. They are no longer thinking about their physical health only but are beginning to understand the importance of mental health and how it determines their happiness. In this article, the HMT will dive deeper into how mental well-being is globally influencing the categories Food & Supplements, Sports Nutrition, Plant-based & Climate and Self-care.

WHY MENTAL WELL-BEING AND WHY NOW
Whether you are in the food and supplements industry and you are interested in consumer health concerns or you are not, but you have happened to read the news sometimes during the last year, you probably have noticed: mental well-being is a recurring theme. Think back to the Tokyo Olympic games in 2021 when Simon Biles spoke up about mental health (very much a taboo topic in professional sports until then) all the way to a study published at the Lancet (1) that shows that depression rates tripled over the course of the first year of the pandemic and you see that mental well- being is an obvious health concern.

At the HMT, we are global brand- builders in food and health, celebrating our 15 year anniversary and the last 15 years that we have been around we have seen different phases of health. The first one was all about Functional Foods with the focus on the product, ingredients and the effect on my physical health. The 2nd phase of health introduces wellness along with the rise of the sustainability-conscious consumer who also cares about the planet. Here we see the trend of plant-based foods start ...