Issue 3 - February 2003

Chiropractic poised for future wellness boom
Noted economist predicts explosion in staying healthy

LAS VEGAS — A $1 trillion-a-year opportunity awaits chiropractic, noted economist Paul Zane Pilzer told an overflowing audience in a keynote address at the Parker Seminars. The wellness industry, which Pilzer calculates brings in more than $200 billion a year now, will surpass $1 trillion a year within the next ten years. And because chiropractors are in the wellness industry, they are poised to benefit from this explosion.

Pilzer said he became intrigued with the idea of wellness in 1996 when he observed a crowd of 45,000 who had spent their money to listen to him speak on economics. “I thought the audience needed more help than economics,” he said. “The crowd was mostly overweight. Instead of spending money to listen to me talk on economics, they should have been spending money on staying healthy and on nutrition.”

His observation of the audience led him to discover that more than half of Americans – 61 percent – are overweight. And 27 percent are medically obese. Even worse, he related, that number has increased 10 percent since he did his initial studies.

Pilzer said her studied the problem of American obesity and found an economic cause behind it: the quest for profit. It’s in the economic interests of two key industries to keep Americans fat, he stated. These industries are food and medicine:

• The food industry. This industry processes its products so that they do not satiate the appetite, said Pilzer, who said he learned this first-hand when he consulted with big food companies. The consequence: People keep eating far more than they need to, because they do not feel full.

• The traditional healthcare industry. The healthcare industry – which Pilzer describes as the “sickness” industry – is more concerned about short-term results than preventative measures, he said: Pharmaceutical companies are driven by a profit motivation to develop drugs that treat symptoms, but they have little motivation to invent pills that cure illnesses. There is more profit in having people take one pill a day for the rest of their lives than there is to take one pill and eliminate the cause.

Pilzer also noted that medical doctors are “technology dispensers” who get their information about pharmaceuticals from the pharmaceutical sales reps. “Medical doctors treat symptoms, not diseases.”

He said that the health-insurance industry, supported largely by employers, contributes to the symptom-treating state: Because people change jobs frequently, the goal of employer-backed health insurance is to get people back to work as fast as possible. Long-term health isn’t a concern of business, he said.

Just as economics has caused the situation, economics will also solve it, Pilzer said, and chiropractors – leaders in the profession of wellness – will reap the rewards. He recounted four economic factors that will cause wellness and nutrition to become the next $1 trillion industry:

• Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers comprise 28 percent of the population but account for 50 percent of the spending done in this country. And the thing boomers want more than anything else is youth, as evidenced by the growing popularity of anything “retro.” “They seek anything to make them feel younger,” he said.

• Shift to higher quality. Once boomers have tried wellness and chiropractic, said Pilzer, they will “move up to a higher quality.” Initially they will try less expensive products and services, but once they have satisfied their basic needs, they will move on to the next level.

• New technology. Nutrition happens on a molecular level, so we don’t fully understand it, he said. But technology will continue to evolve to achieve that understanding. “There will be never-ending business because of aging,” he said.

• Healthcare reform. “Massive reform is coming in health insurance,” he said. The reforms will focus on people being able to take charge of their wellness.

“Medicine is the sickness industry,” said Pilzer. “People become customers of the wellness industry today so that they won’t become customers of the sickness industry tomorrow.”

Paul Zane Pilzer was economic advisor in two presidential administrations and is the author of three best-selling books, including The Wellness Revolution (Wiley, 2002). For more information, see www.paulzanepilzer.com.