These Will Be the Biggest Health Trends of 2022 – Outside

After the global shutdown of 2020, this past year signified a tenuous return to normalcy. Mass-participation marathons returned . Gyms reopened. We had a summer Olympics. Many of those who were working from home went back to the office—some more reluctantly than others . It seemed like we were, if not quite out of the woods, then at least glimpsing the particular light at the meadow’s edge. Now, however , the rise of yet another ominous variant suggests that such optimism could be premature. It’s the reminder that will we’re still very much living in the age of the pandemic and that it continues to impact our collective psyche.

As in Decembers past , we reached out to frequent contributors and other prominent voices in the health plus fitness space to ask for their predictions about the year to come. More often than not, their responses didn’t attempt to forecast specific fads, but reflected  shifting perspectives about what constitutes a “healthy” lifestyle. As Outside ’s Sweat Science columnist Alex Hutchinson notes below, “all predictions reflect underlying desires or fears. ” Hence, the following submissions are perhaps best read as reflections both on what is, and what ought to be.

More People Will Embrace a Weight-Neutral Approach to Health

There will be more focus on behavior (like eating, movement, and sleep) as a way to boost or maintain health regardless of what a person’s body looks like, instead of just pushing weight loss or so-called “healthy weight”  as the answer to everything. It’s not really a new idea, but podcasts like Maintenance Phase plus books like Anti-Diet have helped spread it to  more people, and intuitive eating has become so popular that even big diet companies like Noom and Weight Watchers are co-opting its language to appeal to consumers who are finally realizing that most weight loss attempts are doomed to fail. (Although, to be clear, these companies are still very much selling weight reduction. ) Friends and family members have told me that will they’re hearing far less weight loss talk in spaces that are traditionally really weight-focused, like gyms plus school health classes, which I think speaks volumes.

— Christine Byrne (MPH, RD) Outdoors contributor and Raleigh-based private practice dietitian specializing in eating disorders and disordered consuming

Athletes’ Definitions associated with Success Will Continue to Evolve

I’ve observed a growing trend of athletes across a number of sports—well-known elites all the way down to average-groupers—putting less emphasis on chasing results and not tying so much of their identity or even self-worth in order to performance. I think we’ll see this shift continue inside 2022 as more and more athletes learn to emphasize plus identify with the intrinsic motivations for pursuing their chosen sport.

— Mario Fraioli , author associated with The Morning Shakeout newsletter and podcast series

Menopause Will Have Its Turn in the Spotlight

Menopause offers forever had an image problem, the term conjuring up white-haired women à la The particular Golden Girls that are considered old plus irrelevant and whose needs have been largely ignored. But for people who menstruate, the particular menopause transition starts in one’s 40s, not 70s, and is a normal stage of midlife. And with over one billion people expected to experience menopause by 2025 , we are usually finally paying attention. Menopause-related products plus services—podcasts, supplements, health services, wearables, and skincare—have started to hit the market, a projected $600 billion dollars industry , because ladies don’t want to have the same menopause experience as their mothers and grandmothers. We should expect more within 2022, with special attention on the fitness and performance-oriented space as more women want to remain active and competitive longer.

— Christine Yu , Outside contributor , currently working on the book upon the under-representation of females in sports science research

We Will Revert to Our Old Habits (for Better or Worse)

All “predictions” reflect underlying desires or fears, and this one is a bit of both: I believe fitness in 2022 will be a year of reembracing the normal, the quotidian, the unremarkable. After a period associated with disruption during which—by necessity—we explored new and possibly better ways of doing things, we’re starting to pine for the old familiar methods. As I write this, Peloton’s stock is straight down 75 percent from its mid-pandemic high. Maybe the plain old gym, with its in-person classes and sweatily shared equipment, wasn’t so bad; maybe the beer leagues plus boot camps and Sunday morning group runs are as good because it gets. On the other hand, it’s not like the world was super healthy in 2019, so reverting to normal may also mean deciding that, nah, all of us don’t need to go for that walk within the park that we decided was therefore crucial to our mental wellness during the outbreak, and we’ll just stay here plus watch TV instead. In other words, it’s the mixed bag—but whatever happens, we’ll probably get bored of “normal” by the end of 2022. So don’t dump that Peloton stock yet.

– Alex Hutchinson , Outside Sweat Science writer and author of Endure  

The Quantified Self Wave Will Recede

In 2022, I believe we’ll see people start to hit the point of data overload and move to a more tech-free training plus exercise encounter. For the particular past few years, we’ve seen a massive uptick in fitness and wellness wearables such as the Whoop strap, the Oura ring, and even CGMs for sports athletes . We are inundated with information on sleep, recovery, blood sugar, etc., all of which is eventually going to drive us batty through too many data points that may not even prove useful. All of us are constantly tied in order to tech inside all areas of our lives, and primed to hit burnout. As a result, this particular year I think we’ll observe more sportsmen shed their own straps plus rings and patches plus watches and stop measuring and trying to quantify every metric associated with their training, rest, plus recovery. It’ll be a time to go tech-free and get back to the particular basics of performance that an expensive wearable won’t help you with.

– Amelia Boone , obstacle racing world champion, attorney, and Outside contributor

Most Runners Will Set a Personal Record, Get Injured, or even Both

Next year  will be the year each runner will own a pair of “ super shoes ”—high stack models with light, bouncy foam, curved, embedded plates , and pronounced forefoot rockers. No longer only focusing on  $250+ marathon racers (although no one will want to run the marathon without a pair), brands are also introducing less expensive models durable enough with regard to training , as well as adapting the tech to trail shoes—watch regarding plated off-road models coming from Salomon , Saucony, Craft and Hoka. And runners will find the shoes work, allowing them to run faster along with less effort and leading to PRs. But they’ll work so well that people will not really wish to run in anything else—and there lies the danger. Physical therapists and podiatrists warn that the particular shoes not only enhance performance but also magnify imbalances and alter stride mechanics, introducing brand new stresses . Look intended for increased injuries ranging from shin splints in order to stress fractures, toe trouble to tendinopathies.

— Jonathan Beverly , Senior Running Editor, Outdoors

More Individuals Will Realize that “Readiness Scores” Are BS

I believe on the one hand, there will be an explosion associated with digital wearables purporting to deliver “readiness” scores and lots of people will swoon more than them. However, I think people will increasingly realize that this stuff is a sham. Anyone who has ever done something at a good elite level for a long period of time knows the absurdity of trusting a “readiness score” that will purports in order to quantify all the complex inputs of human performance from a device on your wrist.

– Brad Stulberg , Outside columnist plus author associated with The Practice of Groundedness    

Supply Chain Issues Will Inspire More Minimalist Running

Who knows? COVID keeps upending our own plans and expectations, therefore predictions are a fool’s game. But I’d guess individuals will be desperate within the coming months  to get out associated with their living rooms, meaning less Peloton or online yoga and a lot more traffic on trails plus sidewalks. Probably we’ll see a return to interest in barefoot running in 2022, too, since running shoes in common sizes are really hard to find right now.

– Gretchen Reynolds , New York Times “Phys Ed” columnist 

Wellness Will Increasingly Be an End Unto Itself

The Great Resignation provides shown that many people are leaving their particular jobs, but unemployment is actually at an all-time low. I think this has implications for wellness because it shows that many of us are overworked. We realize we all still require a job, but want to do it on our own terms, so we are entering the freelance or gig economy. At the exact same time, millennials, who possess pushed the particular wellness industry to what it is today, are also getting older and are starting to think about exercise in terms of longevity and pain management. People are even now going to invest in mental health plus fitness, but the focus will certainly be  upon longevity and feeling good, rather than aesthetics or trying to become more productive in your job.

– Joe Holder , Fitness columnist for GQ plus founder associated with The Ocho System