Summary:
-
Gen Z drives wellness spending, influencing trends and habits, with a focus on longevity and health purchases.
-
Consumers prioritize health and wellness spending, protecting this category more than others, with Gen Z leading the charge.
-
Gen Z’s emphasis on fitness and health purchases, as well as longevity products, reflects shifting priorities and driving market growth.
Gen Z is outspending its own share of the population on wellness, and the money is moving toward a specific idea. Not looking good. Lasting longer.
The shift is showing up in weekend habits, in what sells on TikTok, and in which creators brands are paying.
McKinsey’s Future of Wellness research puts the global wellness market at roughly $2 trillion, with about $500 billion of that in the U.S. Gen Z and millennials make up 36% of the American adult population and drive more than 41% of annual wellness spending. Consumers 58 and older are 35% of the population and account for 28%.
It is also the rare category people are protecting. CivicScience data published in January found health and wellness was the only category studied where more consumers planned to spend more in 2026 than planned to cut back. Every other category ran the other direction.
Gen Z is the sharp end of that. A Chain Store Age and Lightspeed Commerce survey found 61% of Gen Z respondents are specifically targeting fitness and health purchases this year, more than double the general population rate. McKinsey found 56% of U.S. Gen Z consumers call fitness a very high priority, against 40% of U.S. consumers overall.
Americans plan to spend about $60 billion on fitness in 2026, per Empower’s analysis of YouGov data, and Planet Fitness says Gen Z is its fastest-growing membership segment even after it raised its base fee 50% in 2024.
ADVERTISEMENT
McKinsey names longevity products as one of six wellness categories where growth is accelerating, alongside functional nutrition, beauty and aesthetics, in-person services like retreats and IV treatments, weight management and mental health. Roughly 70% of U.S. and U.K. consumers said they bought more in the healthy-aging category than the year before, and the result held across age groups.
Twenty-somethings buying anti-aging products used to be a punchline. Now it is a category. Two-thirds of Gen Z and millennials in the U.S., U.K. and Germany reported buying functional nutrition products in the past year, per McKinsey. Statista survey data from early 2025 found 48% of U.S. Gen Z consumers had bought vitamins in the previous six months, and only 31% had bought no supplements at all.
The Harris Poll surveyed 4,100 U.S. adults from May 28 to June 6, including 603 Gen Z adults ages 18 to 29. Its Gen Z Weekend Report, released in July, found 74% stay in for at least half their weekends and 73% say staying in is now the default. Sixty-eight percent said going out is not worth the cost.
The report found 88% actively avoid at least one type of social setting, led by large gatherings with strangers, loud venues, expensive nights and alcohol-centered events. Seventy-three percent wished for more places where alcohol is not the point.
“Hard socializing is over,” said Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll, who described the social center of gravity moving from the nightclub to the workout and the class.
This is not a generation opting out of people. Fifty-one percent reported weekend loneliness, the highest of any generation surveyed, and 71% said they feel they are missing the in-person experiences older generations had. Seventy-nine percent want more affordable ways to spend time outside the home, and say those options are missing.
ADVERTISEMENT
EMARKETER’s US Digital Health 2026 survey found 67% of Gen Z encounter healthcare ads on social platforms, compared with 50% of millennials, 38% of Gen X and 36% of boomers. McKinsey found younger consumers are more likely than older ones to be influenced into a wellness purchase by health content on social media.
The most valuable segment is a creator audience. McKinsey’s profile of “maximalist optimizers,” the tech-savvy, research-driven group that skews Gen Z and millennial, puts them at about 25% of wellness consumers and more than 40% of category spending. They are influenced by social media and they also want a doctor’s opinion.
That double demand is the squeeze for anyone making this content. McKinsey noted that as the influencer economy grows, and with it the supply of dubious health opinions, consumers are placing more weight on recommendations from doctors. The credentialed creator, the dietitian or physician who can hold an audience, is worth more in this category than raw reach.
Longevity is louder than it is common. A Talker Research survey cited by EMARKETER found 77% of Gen Z plan to simplify their approach this year around sleep at 48%, hydration at 43% and exercise at 38%. Only 21% plan to optimize or biohack with tracking, devices and performance supplements.
The unmet demand is social infrastructure. Seventy-nine percent of Gen Z want affordable, low-pressure ways to be around people outside the home and report that supply is short.
