Every January brings a fresh crop of “wellness trends,” and every January most of them quietly disappear by March. So what did people actually continue to do this year past the New Year’s New You trends?
Researchers at the University of Mount Saint Vincent surveyed more than 2,500 Americans to find out trends and what stats are the most wellness-obsessed- and you’ll be surprised at the results
The most-tried wellness habits
As expected, supplements, protein snacks, and gut health products top the list as the wellness trends Americans have actually tried, with wearable tech and functional beverages not far behind, and more than a third of people surveyed reporting they’ve tried both
Popular diets
High-protein and intermittent fasting are neck and neck as the most popular approaches, each tried by 43% of Americans. Keto, vegetarian, and Mediterranean round out the top five. Vegan sits further down the list, at 13%
Wellness states
There’s a few fun tidbits in the state-by-state breakdowns. Tennessee came out as the most wellness-engaged state in the country, edging out New York and Illinois and even California, the state with the most wellness influencers, with residents there trying an average of five different wellness trends and spending freely on top of it. This is interesting given that Tennessee tends to score lower in chronic disease rankings and overall health
Advertisement
Indiana landed dead last, with Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, and Kentucky rounding out the bottom five, which means Colorado’s hiking-boots-and-camping reputation didn’t translate into the highest engagement score (go figure!). And when researchers pulled Google search data instead of survey answers, Ozempic came out on top in 23 states — more than any other single trend — while Oura led in 10 and, in a plot twist for anyone picturing green smoothies, mocktails topped the charts in six. In California, people are most googling “Gua Sha” (which is more beauty oriented than wellness, but I guess that tracks too)
The “gut health” and “functional beverage” numbers didn’t surprise me — I’ve spent the past few years (and a whole book) writing about ancestral wellness (primarily in Latin America) and half of what’s being marketed as new wellness science is really just your great grandmother’s kitchen hacks and recipes. Fermented drinks, bone broth, protein, eating with the seasons are just 2026 rediscoveries
And all of these are good things – it means that there’s a huge shift in how people are thinking about eating, their bodies, and aging, and that’s great for everyone
You can read the full study here
Creators are not employed by Yahoo. Views expressed by creators do not reflect the opinions and position of Yahoo.Learn how to become a creator.
