Healthy January

The winter holidays are a time of celebration, with various groups observing important religious dates and the turning of the calendar year. With celebration comes a range of festivities, often involving gatherings with family and friends, not to mention abundant food and beverages.

The outcome of this excess can be added weight and a bit of a hangover, which spurred the birth of Dry January. This annual event involves avoiding alcohol for the first month of the year, ostensibly to dry out and reset after the holidays.

As resolutions go, giving up alcohol, even for a month, isn’t a bad idea. It goes hand-in-hand with the most popular New Year’s resolution – weight loss. As a business operating in the food and beverage industry, however, you might be looking for ways to put a more positive spin on counteracting holiday excess.

Adopting a “Healthy January” approach to your marketing in the new year is a great way to embrace the trend toward cutting back, focusing on replacing harmful habits with healthy ones. 

Whether you focus on diet, food items, functional beverages, holistic trends, or even mental health, helping address the holiday hangover gives businesses a boost when recovering from the post-holiday slump as well.

Eating Mindfully

When you’re putting away loads of holiday favorites like prime rib, latkes, breads, and desserts, it’s easy to put on a few extra pounds, especially when cold weather makes you want to hibernate rather than hit up the gym. 

For consumers interested in shedding pounds after the holidays, adopting mindful eating habits can help to improve the success of any diet and lead to healthy choices for life.

Whether you’re offering diet alternatives to regular fare or your company delivers organic, whole grain, and generally healthier foods overall, consider marketing campaigns that focus on mindful eating habits. 

Adding value to your proposition with useful information only makes your goods more desirable and improves the efficacy of your healthy approach.

Related: Microbiome and Gut Health Trends

Energy-Boosting Beverages

Everyone knows the benefits of H2O, but functional beverages deliver more than simple hydration. When the holidays are over, consumers can be left feeling physically and mentally heavy. Beverages that offer a pick-me-up can be a real boon.

Functional beverages range from water, juice, sports drinks, and energy drinks to milk and milk alternatives that are fortified with vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, and other extras meant to improve health, energy, and performance. 

This is just the boost many consumers want when returning to work, exercise, and diet regimens after the holidays.

Holistic Health

A holistic approach to health considers the whole person. It could include a focus on diet, exercise, environment, sleep habits, energy, immunity, mental health, social-emotional factors, or all of the above. 

Promoting products as contributing factors in a whole-body health regimen could appeal to consumers struggling with a range of issues following the excess of the holiday season. With both physical and mental health concerns dominating the early part of a new year, holistic health becomes an important consideration for many people.

Related: Ways to achieve a Healthy Lifestyle

Mental Health

New Year’s resolutions tend to focus largely on losing pounds gained from eating winter comfort foods, but following the pandemic, the post-holiday blues are gaining more attention. 

Depression after the holidays is nothing new. After decorations are removed, family and friends have gone, and households have returned to normal routines, the let-down can lead to very real depression and anxiety.

Paying attention to mental health at this time and taking steps to alleviate the seasonal slump can help people transition back to daily lives with improved energy, mental clarity, and emotional wellness. 

The right diet can have an incredible impact on mental health, and companies that shift their strategies in this direction may improve customer engagement and satisfaction.

Healthy January is more than just a consumer trend. It’s an opportunity for businesses to connect with customers in meaningful ways and work to improve their lives, helping boost post-holiday sales in the process.

Subscribe to In-sight to receive articles and reports directly to your inbox, CLICK HERE!