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How companies are catering for people’s busy lifestyles

Image of the post author Kadence International

Nowadays people have very hectic and busy lifestyles – trying to balance work, home and a social life is increasingly challenging. However, companies are becoming more attuned to this and starting to adapt their products to suit.

Lack of time is typically the main reason for lack of participation in sport or gym attendance. However, it remains hugely popular, with the number of people taking part every week reaching around 16 million and the number of fitness centre members in the UK being the highest ever.

Maybe this is because gyms are increasing the number of classes or reducing their length to be more flexible. For example, some gyms are now promoting 30 minute classes, which are easier to squeeze into your lunch break. Some offices even have gyms that you can pop to whenever in the working day to help cater for busy lifestyles. Also having exercise studios entirely dedicated to one activity (such as yoga) means there are more classes for people to choose from.

Participation in high-intensity exercise classes and activities, like spin and boxercise, continue to attract large numbers of people, potentially rivalling more traditional sports such as football, netball and hockey. Outdoor activities such as bootcamp and Parkrun are also increasing in popularity which are seen as a highly sociable way to exercise. Maybe this is people’s way of ticking both the ‘exercise’ and ‘socialise’ boxes on their to-do lists?

More established activities like yoga and pilates are still gaining in popularity as well. These classes are expected to provide both physical and mental benefits – such as increased muscle strength and tone, improved athletic performance, stress relief and encouraging relaxation. People can therefore achieve a healthier lifestyle in a more compact way, which saves time relative to completing several separate activities to achieve the same benefits.

As well as exercise companies, nutrition companies are also adapting to people’s hectic lifestyles. Nutrition is becoming more of a focus and healthy eating is a main element of having a healthy lifestyle. We have therefore seen the rise in trends such as The Body Coach, Joe Wicks, who promises that you’ll be able to lose weight, despite eating more food and spending less time at the gym. He also has a 15 minute meals cookbook that caters for those lacking time in the evenings and suggests quick exercises you can do in the comfort of your own home.

Adapting to hectic lifestyles has also paved the way for food companies such as HelloFresh or Gousto. Their USP is that they deliver fresh ingredients and healthy recipes straight to your doorstep. This means you can get back from a busy day at work and have your dinner all bought and planned out for you – all you have to do is follow the recipe. The next step on from this is Deliveroo that actually delivers healthy food options straight to the doorstep of either your home or office ready for consumption! So now when you get home from work late and cooking is the last thing on your mind, instead of the traditional Chinese or Indian takeaways you can now get Pho or Sushi delivered to your door!

So having a healthy lifestyle doesn’t appear to be a fad or a trend, it’s the way things are nowadays. We have already seen intersections between health and exercise but this also begs the question – where will this go? What’s next for healthy lifestyles?

Maybe exercise and retail companies will start partnering up. For example, introducing grocery stores at the gym to save having to do a food shop later that evening. Or they could pair up in a totally different way. It may be counter-intuitive but BeerYoga is something that I stumbled upon recently where attendees can drink beer whilst doing yoga. Now this ticks all the boxes – social, mental and physical. Will that mean that WinePilates or SushiSpin emerge as trends as well? It’s fair to say some of these may seem slightly odd now but many fads do before they become accepted into society.