Americans are spending more on health and wellness, and the reasons have less to do with income than with institutional skepticism. That dynamic is creating a significant retail opportunity, one that major retailers are already moving to capture.

"[Wellness] has evolved into a much broader concept that combines physical health and mental health and emotional balance and lifestyle habits and longevity," said EMARKETER analyst Rajiv Leventhal in a recent episode of "Behind the Numbers."

Health and wellness is the only discretionary spending category where more consumers plan to increase spending than decrease it in 2026, per a December 2025 CivicScience survey. Categories like home improvement and travel are seeing the opposite trend.

The US wellness economy is valued at roughly $2 trillion, per the Global Wellness Institute, working out to approximately $6,000 per person annually. That number skews toward higher earners, but the directional signal is consistent: Consumers are treating wellness spending as non-negotiable even when other budgets tighten.

Why trust is the real driver

The conventional explanation for wellness spending growth is that people can't access or afford traditional healthcare, so they self-direct. Experts say the reality is more complicated. Many wellness products, supplements, wearables, specialized nutrition, and longevity-focused services are themselves expensive and uninsured. Consumers are buying them anyway.

Leventhal said this relationship with wellness might be caused by declining trust in traditional healthcare institutions, combined with a surge in accessible wellness content on social media.

"Wellness information has become a lot more accessible and pervasive than ever before," he said.

Influencers and online communities have filled the gap that physicians can't, partly because of access and cost constraints, and partly because a standard appointment doesn't naturally lend itself to conversations about supplements, sleep quality, or metabolic optimization.

"People might only have a few minutes to talk to their doctor, and it might not be the most comprehensive conversation that encompasses everything going on in a patient's life," said Leventhal.

Consumers now make decisions about diet and nutrition, vitamins and supplements, and wellness and longevity based more on social media creators and AI than on their doctors, per a March 2026 Edelman Health Trust survey. Doctors still lead on diagnosis and acute treatment. Outside those moments, the information dynamic has shifted.

"When it comes to lifestyle habits, it's more so the other sources versus their doctor," said Leventhal. "A lot of these wellness products and services are pretty expensive, and it's not like insurance covers them… But people are still willing to purchase them because of some sort of lack of institutional trust in the healthcare system. Something that's really deeply ingrained."

What retailers are doing about it

Retailers have read the demand signal clearly. Target reported in its May earnings call that 70% of its shoppers buy or search for wellness-focused items. Walmart and Walgreens have both expanded private-label wellness lines.

"Places that you really wouldn't consider as traditional wellness companies are moving into wellness because of consumer demand," Leventhal said.

Wellness has migrated from specialty to mass retail, and the major players are repositioning accordingly.

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are making the same move through acquisition. Unilever purchased a vitamin and supplement brand. PepsiCo acquired a prebiotic soda brand. These are companies not historically associated with healthy products, but as Leventhal observed, "they're meeting consumer demand, and they know they have to change some of their product lines to be more wellness focused."

The challenge is that wellness consumers are not a monolith. The same shopper buying protein products at Target may be sourcing peptides through channels well outside any regulatory framework. About 14% of peptide users obtain them via messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram; 10% source from overseas suppliers, according to a May 2026 report from Sunlight. That gray market exists because the same trust gap driving mainstream wellness spending also pushes some consumers past the mainstream entirely.

As our analyst Beth Snyder Bulik noted, the difference between a mainstream wellness purchase and a fringe one is often just the number of influencer touch points: "It's not just one ad. It's thousands of touch points where people are hearing it, and not only can be influenced, but where they can buy."

Retailers and brands that understand the trust disparity as the core dynamic, not just the spending trend, are better positioned to capture it.

Listen to the full episode.

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