The health and fitness sector is becoming an essential part of the rapidly emerging global wellness industry, while uniting to fight for representation and essential status

It all started with a few fitness fanatics building gyms in the 1950s and now we find ourselves – 70 years later – increasingly part of the wider global wellness industry, which is emerging as the biggest movement on earth.

In this issue, we delve into this connection with reports and interviews to celebrate the vital role being played by the sector as wellness takes on ever more significance.

On page 34 HCM’s editor-at-large, Kate Cracknell catches up with Dr Fiona Bull, the head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Physical Activity Unit.

We first talked with Dr Bull in 2018, when WHO published its Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018–2030. Now the organisation has published a Global Status Report, with findings on progress to date.

The WHO says that by 2030, US$300bn could be saved globally in healthcare costs if we can get people more active. This in turn would prevent the occurrence of 500m cases of non-communicable diseases and mental health conditions, improving quality of life and freeing up valuable resources.

A world free of preventable disease is a key goal of the Global Wellness Institute and on page 72 Jane Kitchen reports from the organisation’s recent Global Wellness Summit in Tel Aviv, which saw experts from around the world convening to talk about the wellness economy, review trends and hear new insight into policy research.

As the wellness infrastructure represented by these and many other organisations is steadily built out, it’s possible to see the emerging shape of the sector and how powerful collaborations will drive our future success.

On page 43, we flag up the World Active Forum – one of the first top-tier organisations to seek to unite all agencies working across the world representing the physical activity sector. The organisation will be transformed into a Federation at FIBO 2023 in Köln, becoming another valuable piece of the jigsaw.

One of the ultimate goals of the sector – to be acknowledged as essential – has been achieved by the state of Queensland in Australia and on page 66, Barrie Elvish gives us the background to the breakthrough, as the sector works to emulate this success worldwide.

The gravitational pull that’s bringing all these wellness stands together is even impacting the public sector and this month in the UK, quango, Sport England, further reinforced this direction of travel with its new report, Future of Public Sector Leisure, (page 31) which advocates a pivot to wellbeing by services within the public activity sector.

Ultimately though, consumers are driving this trend and on page 52 we look at new data about Gen Z – soon to be the largest generation on earth – who are demanding that wellness is integrated into all aspects of their lives.