China's worsening pollution gets people working out indoors. (Photo : Reuters)
As modern-day realities of dying young due to cholesterol-infused staples that people eat all day begin to worry more and more people, so is the willingness of the general population to shape up and engage in a healthy lifestyle. The overall result is the expansion of the industry that caters to health buffs.
Tiffany Tang is a living example of healthy lifestyle. Since starting a jogging routine with her friends and family, she admits that she sleeps better and she feels lighter. She says she never felt like healthy like this even in her 20s. Tang, now 36, says she used to be a night owl. But exercise has changed all that. A three-times-a-week running marathon in Beijing Olympic Park.
When there is too much smog in the air, as it is normal in China, she works out in the gym, as she proudly points out that those toned muscles of hers would not work out by themselves.
Tang said that being into exercise gives her new sets of friends, without losing the old ones, although her interest in them is getting less and less because of her fabulous new lifestyle. She admits meeting new friends via WeChat and Weibo microblogs, China's popular social media sites, where health buffs like Tang spend hours talking about their routines, lifestyles, healthy diets, China smog and ways of avoiding it, and of course, their workout techniques.
Just last year, Tang said she ran in the Beijing marathon and earned a medal.
Tang said: "Exercising has become a hobby. Sometimes keeping it going is grueling. But I feel depressed if I don't run."
Tang is just one of those new sector of the Chinese population who have been engaging in a physical lifestyle, a trend which started since Olympic 2008. Recently released research by Mintel Group Ltd. said that eight of 10 people in China are now health buffs, claiming that they are getting rich because of it.
Aside from venture capitalists, big companies who are already in the market are getting sales increase.
Sportswear for instance. Adidas is claiming a huge increase in sales of running shoes due to marathons being sponsored left and right by numerous private and government organizations and institutions. Adidas claims to have sold 1.1 million pairs of its Boost running shoes on 2014 and targets 2.9 million pairs in 2015.
Same is happening to sports product manufacturers in all of China. The business sector has chanced upon a previously untapped market.
Eating less makes people tend to consume more goods that they do not need before. As people get into sports, they also adapt this old consumer mentality that they must also get the good gear to play better.
