Young people more conscious about the importance of health

Whenever she goes out, the young woman surnamed Li always brings a bottle of warm herbal tea with her – a routine she has stuck to for six years. She said warm tea quenches thirst and removes heat from her body.

Students practice Taichi at the Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Fuzhou, southeast China’s Fujian province. Taichi is believed to be good for lung health. (Xinhua/Song Weiwei) 

Like Li, more and more young people are increasingly conscious of the importance of keeping healthy.

Zhang is a doctoral student at Peking University who also follows a strict procedure to maintain good health. Upon getting up at 7 a.m., she first measures her body fat and then takes a handful of vitamin tablets. She has removed spicy and sweet food from her diet, and eats coarse grains, vegetables and lean meats only. She naps for one hour and does physical exercise for one hour during the day, while bathing her feet in warm water before going to bed at 10:30 p.m.

Zhang started to realize the importance of a healthy lifestyle after she found herself in a state of sub-health, which had resulted in her being unable to properly handle her academic studies.

“Then I started to change my diet, do more physical exercise and follow a good sleep pattern,” Zhang explained, adding that she also learned health tips from health bloggers and read a lot of books. “After sticking to the routine for some time, I found myself healthier and more energetic than before,” she said.

Prescribing themselves with a healthy lifestyle and sticking to it has become a trend among young people. A report on young consumer’s spending habits on health products and services published at the end of 2020 indicated that 33 percent of people in this demographic continually maintained good health habits and more than 90 percent realized the importance of keeping in good health.

A survey showed that people born in the 1990s care most about body shape management and better sleep, while another health report released last year by a Chinese healthcare mobile application, Dingxiang Doctor, said that young people are also substantially more aware of mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, than are their parents.

25-year-old Yuan has turned herself into a professional when it comes to how best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. She takes vitamin and mineral supplements every day, and although she admits that they may not make much of a difference to her overall health, they at least make her feel better about herself.

Compared with people of the previous generation who realized the importance of establishing a healthy lifestyle only at an older age, people born in the 1990s and 2000s have started to show concern earlier and care more about their health, an interview has found.

“Young people are open to new ideas. When they see people around them, such as friends and relatives, and even their idols using a new product or service, they’ll follow in their suit,” said Gu Zhongyi of the Beijing Dietetic Association.

The report on young people’s spending patterns on health products and services also indicated that nearly 60 percent of these younger consumers have demonstrated a strong willingness to invest in their health, mainly in sectors related to food and sports.

“In a mid-year shopping spree last year, the sales of eye health products on an e-commerce platform grew 4126 percent compared with the same period in the previous year, and that of protein powder and vitamin products also increased by 751 percent and 387 percent, respectively,” according to Wang Yue, deputy Director of the School of Health Humanities with Peking University, who pointed out that the number of active users on the platform born after 1995 and 2000 was 126 percent more compared with the same period during the previous year.