Affluence and sedentary lifestyles have brought health problems such as obesity and diabetes to Asia, prompting locals such as Chung to fill up their shopping carts with products such as oats, yoghurt and vitamins.
“I went to a bookstore and read about it,” said Chung, 33, a self-employed Taipei resident who lost six kilograms 13 pounds over the past two months. “Im spending a little less and its all healthy, so Im on track.”
Asia has lagged behind other regions in packaged health foods consumption as the overall diet is relatively healthy with vegetables a main ingredient in many local dishes.
Nevertheless, the region’s recent economic success has prompted fast food chains to expand outlets across Asia and foods such as ice-cream and chocolates have become popular.
Where high calorie junk food goes, health food follows close behind, those in the industry say, predicting solid growth for health products in Asia in the next few years.
“They are emerging products,” said Lyndsey Anderson, Asia food and drink head for the London-based market forecasting firm Business Monitor.
“It hasn’t caught on as quickly in the developing world. People traditionally have healthier diets anyway. The need to pay for packaged health foods isn’t there. The region is lagging the rest of the world in that regard,” Anderson said.
“In terms of transitioning, that is completely turning around,” she said, adding that she expected to see steady growth in this high-priced food sector toward the end of 2010 or in early 2011 as the regional economy improves.
Health foods already make up roughly 5 percent of food product portfolios in Asia, she said.
The market for functional foods, which range from flaxseed, wheatgerm and soy-based products to probiotic yoghurt, is worth about $20 billion in Asia, including Japan, Anderson said.
In addition to standard health foods, the supplements industry, which includes vitamins and protein mixes, was worth about $14 billion in Asia in 2006, not including Japan, according to estimates by the research firm DataMonitor.
“In Asia, as people are getting more and more affluent, the health food market is certainly on the rise,” said Shirley Ivarsson, a dietician in Hong Kong.
CHICKEN SOUP
Jostling for space on supermarket shelves in cities from Shanghai to Singapore are local health products such as root powders, herbal teas and variations of chicken soup, a favorite elixir among ethnic Chinese.
Singapore-based Cerebos Pacific, which makes bottled Essence of Chicken, saw 33 percent profit growthfrom 2004 to 2008.
“Consumers are increasingly seeking quick fixes to address health needs as they grow increasingly tired due to demands of work,” the company said in a statement.
About a third of people in Asia and the western Pacific were overweight in 2005 with the numbers seen growing to 53 percent of men and 44 percent of women by 2015, the World Health Organization estimated.
“We’ve moved away from traditional agrarian values,” said Ted Ning, executive director of Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, a U.S.-based consumer movement.
In China, 23 percent of the population is overweight and diabetes has become a serious health problem with the World Health Organization predicting that by 2030 diabetes cases will double to 42 million cases.
In India, the world diabetes capital with 40 million cases, a number expected to double by 2025, the market for health foods is estimated at $200 million and forecast to over $1 billion by 2012, according to consulting firmFrost & Sullivan.
Obese people make up a quarter of the population in some Indian cities, another by-product of rising incomes.
LOCALISATION
The drinks market has gone healthy with Coca-Cola Co introducing a new bottled spring water in Japan last month after expanding its product lines in Hong Kong with drinks flavored with preserved almonds, jujubes and pears.
Last October, PepsiCo launched SoBe beverages, a range that included fortified teas, fruit drinks and energy drinks in India.
Nestle was the first to introduce probiotic yogurt in 2007, while Tata Tea, India’s top tea company, recently introduced a series of cold drinks with tea, fruit and ginseng.
It’s not always easy to convince consumers that a specialized food can help them, said Charu Harish, who does publicity in Hong Kong and Malaysia for GlaxoSmithKline‘s Horlicks milk-and-wheat drink and Ribena fruit drinks.
“It’s not about a soft sell,” Harish said. “Health and well being are the first things people in Asia think of. We are trying to market our products with as much transparency as possible.”
For this reason, companies go to great lengths to emphasize the health properties of their products when targeting consumers in Asia.
In its marketing campaigns in the region, the Almond Board of California, which represents 6,000 growers, has stressed that its nuts contain anti-oxidants and protein.
As a result, the board saw 24 percent growth from 2006 to 2008, with its members earning $486 million in 2008 from sales in four Asian countries, including China and India, said chief marketing officer Shirley Horn.
Reflecting the view of many consumers in Asia, Wanpen Thongsri, 49, a company executive in Thailand where health food popularity has grown exponentially, said that she is willing to pay a premium for healthy foods.
“Frankly, I don’t know if I can feel safe with all brands. But I’m willing to pay more for good health,” she said.
via Obesity worries lift health food prospects in Asia – Yahoo News.
]]>Once considered a ‘western’ disease, diabetes has become an increasingly a global problem. The International Diabetes Federation predicts that the number of individuals with the disease will increase from 240 million in 2007 to 380 million by 2025. An estimated 60% of those cases will be in Asia. In North America and Europe the disease most often hits people in their 60s and 70s, but in Asia, it is increasingly hitting the young and middle aged. Asia’s diabetics are also thinner: Reviewing 20 years of research on diabetes in Asia, the study’s authors, scientists Frank Hu of Harvard’s School of Public Health and Juliana Chan of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, found that in Asian populations the risk of diabetes starts at a lower Body Mass Index, or BMI, a measure calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared.
In Asia, as elsewhere, weight still does matter; obesity and diabetes are clearly linked. The problem, the study found, is that measures of obesity are one-size-fits-all. People with a BMI above 25 are generally considered “overweight,” and those with a score above 30 are labeled “obese” and therefore generally considered more at risk for the disease. But focusing on fat alone misses a chunk of Asia’s epidemic, says Hu. “BMI doesn’t tell the whole story.”
Reviewing over 200 studies on diabetes in Asia, researchers looked at a host of socio-political and cultural shifts that have changed the way Asian people live and eat. The twin processes of rapid economic development and urbanization are partly to blame, says Chan. Changes that took place over 200 years in Europe have been accelerated in Asia, leading to what she describes as a “mismatch” between people’s genetic make-up and their habits. Food is more abundant today across Asia than it was, say, 100 years ago, but bodies have yet to adapt. Says Chan: “We are five foot three, but we eat like we are six feet tall.” (Read “Gastric Bypass May Be Less For Helpful for Diabetics.”)
Though packing six feet worth of food into a five-foot frame is never advisable, it may be particularly dangerous for Asians, the study found. Because of the metabolic mismatch Chan describes, some people may lack the cells to store excess fat. Instead of bunching around the buttocks or amassing on the arm, extra fat builds in other places, like the liver. Many Asian people, particularly South Asians, are also more prone to abdominal obesity, the study noted. Skinny people with thick middles are particularly prone to developing Type II Diabetes, which helps explain why the disease is spreading in places where people are, on average, quite thin.
The cost is huge. Type II diabetes is linked to a host of illnesses including heart disease, stroke and kidney failure. The World Health Organization predicts these diabetes-linked chronic diseases will cost China alone about $558 billion in lost productivity and healthcare costs over the next decade, taking a large bite out of the country’s hard-fought economic gains. And so it is across the continent — unless things change. Professor Hu is cautiously optimistic. The good news, he says, is that Type II Diabetes can be controlled with prevention and treatment. He hopes the study will convince policy-makers to spend big on both. That’s a pricey proposition, to be sure. But then again, health is a pretty good investment.
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