Consumers digest healthy eating options: wellness fragments food marketplace

DSN Retailing Today,  Sept 6, 2004  by Mike Duff

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Wellness has become perhaps the pivotal issue affecting food today, but in the future, it may well have an even greater impact on how and what kinds of edibles consumers purchase. Between the emphasis on nutritional education in schools--spurred by concerns about childhood obesity--and the aging of a baby boom generation that is looking to nutrition as its fountain of youth, a consensus may be emerging that will establish influential parameters about what constitutes a healthy diet.

Food retailers will come under increasing pressure to work within those parameters even as the territory they demarcate becomes increasingly fragmented.

According to a study by the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI), demographic factors ranging from gender to ethnicity are playing a larger role in how consumers choose products they associate with wellness. Increasingly, they are looking for the wellness products relevant to their lifestyles. "As the wellness market matures, consumers are looking to manage any number of specific health concerns," said Steve French, NMI managing partner. Smart vendors and retailers have an opportunity to "rake advantage of these trends by examining the attitudes and behaviors of various demographic groups to help inform their competitive strategies."

The approach of individuals and demographic groups to wellness issues will have an increasing effect on food consumption as they comprehend the health problems they might face.

Hispanics, along with African-Americans, tend to be among the groups most impacted by obesity issues and corresponding problems, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, for example. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, noted that among the three groups of adults studied, non-Hispanic Blacks and Mexican Americans surpassed non-Hispanic whites in percentage of population characterized as obese. In addition to being an ethnic issue, obesity may also be regarded as a woman's issue in that a higher proportion of women generally--and in each of the three study groups--were more likely to be obese. As consumers gain knowledge about the relationship between their health and nutrition, they are more likely to seek products that address their specific problems.

The ethnic and gender dimensions of obesity are causing people to look at wellness issues in new ways--and so is the dimension of age. Weight gain among older Americans is a concern that will garner more attention as baby boomers retire, but obesity among young people is getting more of the attention today. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the proportion of 6- to 11-year-olds who are overweight more than doubled, and the proportion of 12- to 19-year-olds who are overweight tripled, between 1980 and 2000 studies.

Now, obesity studies have their critics, but the issue has gotten sufficient attention to prompt action. Sesame Workshop has launched a multi-year initiative dubbed Healthy Habits for Life that aims to prompt preschoolers and their parents make good nutrition choices through multi-media, age-appropriate content. Among the program's supporters, PBS Kids is incorporating messages, activities and interaction into its programming to help children develop healthy eating habits and "lifestyles," as Sesame Workshop has it.

In the retail context, Mass Connections, a marketing services and consumer promotions firm, this spring launched an in-store merchandising program with children's advocacy group, KidsPeace. The program, Join the Fight, Help Kids Eat Right, included among its participants Kmart and Jewel/Osco, and used brochures, activity books, flying disks and giveaways to promote nutritional awareness, said James Madden, a Mass Connections spokesman.

Such initiatives are driving wellness toward the broad consensus that many nutrition professionals believe is emerging in the United States. Faddism has been characteristic of nutritional developments over the past two decades, with low-fat, low-sodium and low-carbohydrate trends all having their period of ascendancy. If a consensus on nutrition is emerging, marketwide trends ]nay become less prominent. Rather than a broadly applicable approach to diet and health, a nutritional approach such as low-carb eating may become more closely associated with Latinos and African-Americans as they address health issues within their respective communities.

Yet, nothing in the realm of nutrition is ever simple, and at least one factor weighs against rapid adoption of low-carb lifestyles by minority consumers.

ACNielsen calculates that average weekly one-person household spending on the Atkins diet comes to about $100, while South Beach costs about $91 in similar circumstances. Given that the Food Marketing Institute calculates that the average one-person household typically spends about $59 weekly on groceries, it is obvious that a low-carb lifestyle doesn't necessarily suit lower-income consumers, at least as it is now defined.