Health consumption has finger on market pulse

On weekday afternoons in Beijing's office towers, it is not unusual to see young executives stir powdered supplements into water bottles between meetings. The labels emphasize what is absent — no sugar, no fat — alongside detailed nutritional breakdowns that make them look more like technical sheets than packaging.

Milk tea once carried young executives through the workday. Now it is being replaced by drinks chosen with closer attention to ingredients, as if transparency alone could deliver control. The language is understated: "cleaner" is often enough.

Across China, similar consumption habits are emerging in different forms. Some office workers spend weekends in indoor ski simulators that reproduce slope movement without the weather, the distance or the risk. Others fall asleep wearing smart eye masks that use sound patterns to regulate rest.

These scenes repeat across cities. Health shows up in objects, routines and small purchases that sit on desks, bedside tables or in gym bags.

A bottle of functional drink. A wrist device tracking sleep. A subscription to a physical training studio. A decade ago, none of these would have been described as "healthcare".

Spending on health-related services continues to rise across categories in 2026. Fitness, wellness, and health management all show steady growth.

At the sixth China International Consumer Products Expo, scheduled for April 13 to 18, health consumption has been assigned a dedicated zone — one of the more visible signs of where the market is headed.

The first driver is a change in mindset. For a long time, health followed a simple order: if something breaks, get it fixed. Symptoms first, response after. That order no longer applies. Chronic conditions build without clear signals. Fatigue stretches across months. Sleep loss becomes a routine rather than an exception. By the time something feels wrong, the problem has often already settled in.

What has emerged instead is a habit of monitoring before the breakdown. Not dramatic, not always deliberate — more a layering of small adjustments into daily life. A watch that counts sleep cycles. A drink chosen for its label. A fitness class booked because it fits between meetings.

Technology has made this shift operational. Advice such as "exercise more" or "sleep earlier" is easy to say and hard to measure. Wearable devices have changed that. Smart watches and bands now track heart rate, blood oxygen levels, sleep cycles and stress indicators in real time. Some even flag potential cardiac irregularities. The body turns into something that can be checked without going to a clinic. This measurability has turned health consumption into something more disciplined and more persistent.

Policy has moved alongside this change. A coordinated plan released in 2025 spans nutrition, fitness services, and specialized health consumption. In some regions, devices like smart watches fall under subsidy programs, lowering the cost for buyers.

The market has neat segments. Younger people lean toward functional food and wearables. Middle-aged users focus on sleep and stress. Older groups turn to chronic care and accessibility tools. One category becomes many.

This signals that the market has matured. A loosely defined market of generic supplements has transformed into a structured ecosystem of targeted solutions.

Health consumption is shifting from buying products to shaping lifestyles.

But rapid expansion brings tension. Social media is full of wellness tips, detox plans, and anti-aging routines that mix partial science with strong claims. They build an image of "perfect health" that most people cannot reach. The result is not only aspiration but anxiety. A loop emerges: anxiety is created, solutions are sold, relief is brief, and consumption continues. Often, consumers are not purchasing health itself but reassurance.

Regulation is still catching up. Health content now travels through livestreams, short videos and social media. Promotion hides inside experience-sharing. Reviews sound more like recommendations. Oversight sits across different agencies and regions. Gaps remain between them.

Looking ahead, health consumption is likely to remain one of the most stable growth areas in China's consumer economy. The question is not whether it will expand, but how it can expand in a healthier direction.

That requires coordination across multiple levels. For consumers, the most effective protection is health literacy — being able to read labels, evaluate claims, and distinguish evidence from marketing. Maintaining good health is still simple: balanced nutrition, regular exercise, sufficient sleep and psychological wellbeing. These are neither new nor glamorous, but remain the most effective paths to overall wellness.

For companies, the shift needs to move from traffic-driven promotion to evidence-based trust.

Products that withstand scrutiny are the ones that endure. For regulators and industry bodies, faster standard-setting and clearer enforcement mechanisms are essential to reduce space for exaggerated or misleading claims.

Health consumption is expanding quickly. Whether it develops into a durable pillar of well-being or a cycle of overpromised solutions will depend on how these forces are aligned.

The goal is not simply more consumption, but consumption that genuinely supports health itself.

The author is an associate researcher at the Institute of Finance and Banking of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a senior research fellow at the National Institution for Finance and Development.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily. 

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