Consumer health and wellness research: why prevention lives in daily rituals, not medical instructions

Key takeaways:

  • Preventive wellness is now a $2 trillion global market, with 84% of US consumers calling it a top priority (McKinsey, 2025). But most consumer health and wellness research still relies on surveys and focus groups that capture what people claim to do, not what they actually do.

  • People sustain their health through routines, rituals, and small daily decisions anchored to specific moments, environments, and emotions. They don't follow clinical guidelines. Understanding this gap is the central challenge of consumer health and wellness research.

  • Emotion predicts wellness adherence better than efficacy claims. Products that feel caring, visible, and rewarding consistently outperform those that merely promise to work.

  • Consumers adopt wellness habits from peers, influencers, and family networks far more often than from healthcare providers. 70% of global consumers now say they are proactive in managing their health (NIQ, 2025), but their choices are shaped by social proof, not clinical advice.

  • In-the-moment video ethnography and longitudinal diary studies reveal the friction points, emotional triggers, and routine disruptions that determine whether a wellness product becomes a habit or gets abandoned within weeks.

Why consumer health and wellness research matters now

The wellness market is growing fast and shows no signs of slowing. McKinsey's 2025 Future of Wellness survey estimates the global wellness market at $2 trillion, expanding at 4 to 5 percent annually. In the US alone, wellness spending exceeds $500 billion a year. NIQ's Global State of Health & Wellness 2025 report found that 70% of global consumers believe they are proactive in managing their health, and 55% are willing to spend over $100 a month on better nutrition, self-care, and physical and mental health.

These aren't niche consumers. Younger generations are driving disproportionate spend: Gen Z and millennials make up 36% of the US adult population but account for over 41% of annual wellness spending. They're also more likely to experiment with new products, track their health digitally, and be influenced by social media when making wellness purchases.

For brands in supplements, functional food, OTC health, personal care, and fitness, the commercial opportunity is clear. But so is the research challenge: most consumer health and wellness research still relies on methods that can't keep up with how people actually behave.

Why surveys and focus groups miss real wellness behaviour

Traditional research methods (surveys, focus groups, retrospective interviews) consistently fail to capture the reality of how people maintain wellness. The problem is structural: these methods rely on claimed behaviours and memory recall.

When you ask someone about their supplement routine in a focus group, they describe an idealised version. They tell you they take vitamins every morning with breakfast. What they don't mention is that the bottle sits untouched in the cupboard for weeks, or that they only remember when scrolling past a wellness influencer on social media.

As Busetto et al. (2020) noted, qualitative research remains underrepresented in health and wellness research despite its unique ability to capture the everyday realities that shape human behaviour and health outcomes.

The gap between intention and execution

What people claim What actually happens "I take my vitamins every morning" The bottle migrates between kitchen counter and cupboard; consistency varies by season, stress, and social context "I exercise three times a week" Activity depends on work schedules, weather, childcare, and emotional state "I eat healthy most of the time" The definition of "healthy" shifts based on social situations, convenience, and emotional needs "I use home remedies when I feel a cold coming" Remedy choices are inherited from family, borrowed from friends, or discovered through social media

This intention-execution gap is well documented. Ipsos research on the say-do gap shows that self-reported intentions consistently overpredict positive behaviour. People describe the consumer they aspire to be, not the consumer they are. In wellness research, this distortion is particularly acute because health behaviours carry strong social desirability bias: nobody wants to admit they stopped taking their supplements after a week.

 
 

How people actually sustain health in everyday life

People sustain their health through habits, rituals, and small decisions that anchor wellness to specific moments, environments, and emotions. They don't follow medical instructions. After analysing hundreds of preventive health studies conducted on Indeemo's platform, four consistent patterns emerge.

1. Routines as reassurance

A smoothie after school drop-off. A supplement with morning coffee. Herbal tea before bed. These aren't random health behaviours. They're anchors of control in uncertain times.

Participants consistently link wellness products to existing rituals. The vitamin doesn't stand alone; it sits beside the kettle. The probiotic lives next to the coffee maker. The sleep supplement becomes part of the wind-down routine. When researchers capture these moments through in-context video diaries, they see wellness literally embedded in the physical environment of daily life.

This aligns with McKinsey's finding that younger consumers are conceptualising wellness as a daily, personalised practice rather than a set of occasional activities or purchases. The ritual is the product experience.

2. Health as social currency

People borrow wellness routines from peers, creators, and family networks far more often than they follow medical guidance.

The research reveals a consistent pattern: consumers trust recommendations from people they relate to over advice from healthcare professionals. A friend's skin-clearing supplement routine carries more weight than a dermatologist's prescription. A family member's cold remedy passed down through generations feels more credible than a pharmacy label.

This isn't irrational. It's social proof. McKinsey's 2025 survey found that younger consumers are significantly more likely to be influenced by social media when making wellness purchases than older generations. NIQ's research confirms it: consumers increasingly look to digital communities and peer networks for wellness guidance.

3. Convenience beats intention

Even highly motivated participants wrestle with friction: time, cost, or competing priorities. The gap between wellness intention and wellness execution is enormous.

Through longitudinal video ethnography, researchers observe supplements purchased with enthusiasm and abandoned within weeks. Fitness apps downloaded, used intensively, then forgotten. Healthy groceries bought on Sunday, expired by Friday. Self-care routines maintained during calm periods, dissolved under stress.

The insight is simple but easy to miss: it's not motivation that predicts wellness behaviour. It's friction. The products that win are those that reduce barriers to the smallest possible increment.

4. Emotion drives adherence

Products that feel caring, visible, and rewarding outperform those that merely promise efficacy. Across hundreds of studies, emotional resonance predicts long-term adherence better than clinical evidence.

Participants stay loyal to products with visible, tangible forms (gummies over tablets), brands that communicate care rather than just efficacy, routines that provide immediate sensory feedback, and habits that can be shared or displayed socially.

This explains why McKinsey found that wellness consumers increasingly prioritise quality and experience over price. They're not just buying a product. They're buying a feeling of control, self-care, and identity.

What research methods actually reveal wellness consumer behaviour?

In-the-moment mobile ethnography, longitudinal video diary studies, and contextual photo capture reveal prevention as it's truly lived, not as it's remembered or idealised.

Traditional methods ask people to reconstruct their behaviours after the fact. Ethnographic methods capture behaviours as they happen, in their natural context, with all the messiness of real life.

How Indeemo captures consumer health and wellness insights

Method What it captures Why it matters Video diaries Real-time recordings of wellness moments as they happen Eliminates recall bias; shows environment, emotion, and context Photovoice Participant-captured images of products, routines, and spaces Reveals the material reality of wellness: where products live, how they're stored, what triggers use Longitudinal tracking Changes over days, weeks, or months Shows habit formation, decay, and adaptation over time In-moment prompts Responses triggered at specific times or events Captures the immediate emotional and contextual factors driving behaviour

What researchers see through this lens

The cues that trigger or disrupt healthy habits. A participant's vitamin routine collapses when their morning schedule shifts; it recovers when they anchor it to a new ritual.

The material and emotional contexts surrounding products. A supplement positioned as "self-care" gets used; the same ingredient positioned as "medicine" sits ignored.

The divergence between intention and execution. Participants genuinely believe they use products consistently; video evidence shows otherwise.

This is what makes diary studies so effective for consumer health and wellness research. They turn wellness from a self-report into a set of observable, designable moments.

Four lenses for exploring consumer wellness behaviour

Four research lenses consistently reveal the richest insight when exploring consumer and preventive health.

Lens 1: Ritual and routine

What to look for: repetition and rhythm. Health lives in patterns, not declarations. Researchers should identify what existing rituals wellness products attach to, what environmental cues trigger (or prevent) healthy behaviours, and how routines adapt when life circumstances change.

Lens 2: Emotion and reassurance

What to look for: where comfort or pride attaches to products, environments, and roles. The emotional dimension of wellness is often dismissed as "soft" data, but it's the most predictive factor for sustained behaviour. Products that provide reassurance, control, or visible self-care become habits. Products that feel like obligations become burdens.

Lens 3: Culture and identity

What to look for: how personal narratives and social belonging shape what "being healthy" means. Wellness isn't universal. What counts as "healthy" varies dramatically by cultural background and family tradition, social circle and peer influence, life stage and identity transition, and media consumption and influencer exposure.

McKinsey's segmentation confirms this. Their five wellness consumer segments (maximalist optimisers, confident enthusiasts, health traditionalists, health strugglers, and wellness shirkers) each relate to wellness products through entirely different emotional and cultural lenses. Maximalist optimisers, who represent roughly 25% of consumers but over 40% of market spend, are digitally savvy experimenters. Health traditionalists prioritise simplicity and practicality. The same product needs different framing for each segment, and that framing only becomes visible through in-context research.

Lens 4: Frictions and facilitators

What to look for: the small barriers or prompts that decide whether habits persist or fade. Behaviour change research consistently shows that tiny frictions have outsized effects. A supplement that requires water is harder to take than one that doesn't. A vitamin stored in a cupboard gets used less than one on the counter. An app with a three-step login loses to one with fingerprint access.

How brands can apply consumer wellness research insights

Understanding how prevention is actually lived (not claimed) allows brands to design products, packaging, messaging, and experiences that fit into real human routines.

For product development

Design for friction reduction, not feature addition. Create products that attach to existing rituals. Prioritise sensory and emotional experience alongside efficacy. NIQ's research found that 53% of consumers plan to buy more high-fibre foods in 2025, while around 40% plan to buy more superfoods and probiotic foods. These aren't abstract preferences. They're entry points for products that can earn a place in daily routines if they're designed to fit.

For marketing and communications

Lead with social proof and relatability over clinical claims. Show products in real-life contexts, not isolated settings. Speak to identity and belonging, not just health outcomes. McKinsey's 2025 survey found that nearly 30% of Gen Z and millennials report prioritising wellness "a lot more" compared with one year ago, and that social media is significantly more likely to influence their wellness purchases than it is for older generations.

For packaging and UX

Optimise for visibility in the home environment. Reduce steps between decision and action. Design for the stressed, distracted consumer, not the motivated ideal. When environmental scans reveal that a supplement bottle lives behind the cereal box, that's a packaging and placement insight worth more than a thousand survey responses about purchase intent.

For research and insights

Move from claimed to observed behaviour. Capture context alongside content. Track change over time, not just snapshots. Use AI-powered video analysis to process longitudinal diary data at scale.

Frequently asked questions

How do consumers choose wellness and supplement products?

Consumers choose wellness products based on social proof (peer recommendations, influencer endorsements, family traditions), sensory and emotional experience (how the product looks, feels, and fits into daily routines), and convenience (how little friction exists between deciding to use and actually using). Clinical claims matter, but they're rarely the primary driver of sustained use. Mobile ethnography captures these real-world decision factors in ways that surveys cannot.

Why do surveys fail to capture real health and wellness behaviours?

Surveys rely on memory recall and self-report, which consistently overestimate positive health behaviours. People describe their idealised routines rather than their actual practices. In-the-moment ethnographic methods capture behaviours as they happen, revealing the gap between intention and execution that surveys miss. Research on the say-do gap confirms this pattern across consumer categories.

What is a wellness diary study and how does it work?

A wellness diary study asks participants to document their health and self-care behaviours over days or weeks using video, photos, and text on their smartphones. Participants record themselves taking supplements, preparing meals, exercising, or doing self-care routines in their natural environment. Researchers observe the context, emotion, and friction surrounding these moments, building a picture of how wellness actually happens in daily life.

How long should a consumer wellness study run?

Most preventive health behaviours show meaningful patterns within two to four weeks of observation. Studies examining habit formation, seasonal variation, or behaviour change through life transitions may require eight to twelve weeks or longer. The key is capturing enough time to observe both the establishment and potential decay of wellness routines.

What role does emotion play in wellness product adherence?

Emotion is the strongest predictor of sustained wellness behaviour. Products and routines that provide reassurance, visible results, sensory satisfaction, or social connection become habits. Those that feel like obligations, even if clinically superior, often get abandoned. Designing for emotional resonance is as important as designing for efficacy, and in-context research is the only reliable way to observe which emotional triggers drive real adherence.

What consumer health and wellness research reveals

Preventive health isn't a category. It's a continuum. People maintain balance, motivation, and meaning through small everyday acts, and understanding those acts is where innovation and growth come from. The $2 trillion wellness market is built on daily rituals, not on clinical instructions. The brands that grow will be the ones that understand how those rituals actually work in real homes, real mornings, and real lives.

Surveys will tell you that 70% of consumers consider themselves proactive about their health. In-context research will show you that the vitamin bottle has been behind the cereal box for three weeks.

The difference between those two insights is the difference between a product that launches well and a product that lasts.

Ready to see how wellness actually lives in your consumers' daily routines? Explore how diary studies, mobile ethnography, and in-home video research can reveal what surveys and focus groups miss.

Additional resources

Ian Twohig