Do British mums care about ageing and what do they do?

[Busybeeontwofeet]

Hello mums! ’m building a nutrition brand specifically for women over 40 because honestly, so much of the wellness industry still feels either aimed at 20 year olds or just men.

A lot of women I speak to say they’re noticing changes in energy, strength, recovery, muscle tone, weight distribution and just generally not feeling quite like themselves anymore, even when they’re exercising and eating well.

We’re trying to understand what women actually want from products in this space before we launch anything, so we’ve put together a short survey (takes about 5 minutes).

Would hugely appreciate anyone filling it out or sharing with friends/relatives in this age group.

There’s also a chance to win a £100 Amazon voucher as a thank you.

Survey link: https://form.typeform.com/to/s1mXw0Wf

QR:

Thank you so much, genuinely grateful for any help or opinions.

No, I won’t
but I will say what you are “building” is hardly ground breaking. I’d go so far as to say the market is saturated

Honestly I think the market is more saturated for men than for women but happy to be convinced otherwise, that's why I'm asking the questions here... Men have had products for strength, performance and healthy ageing forever. Women 40+ mostly get generic wellness powders or menopause products that feel clinical and depressing.

There’s a lot of product out there, but not much that actually feels built for women. That’s kind of why we started researching this space in the first place.

As a woman of 41... I am very skeptical of any of this kind of thing and think that if you are eating well and wearing sunscreen that looking older is likely down to genes. I might be persuaded to buy a cheap once a day multi vitamin but I would expect any of the brands already out there to be sufficient. I'm curious what gap in the market you think there is besides 'marketing to 40+ year old women', but then something like wellwoman already does that. We aren't a different species! We might just need a bit of tinkering on our iron levels.

Speaking as someone firmly within your target market...

We are constantly bombarded with huge quantities of the stuff already. Every single magazine aimed at women is stuffed to the gunwales with information and exhortations about health, fitness, wellness, diet, you name it. All designed to make us feel bad about ourselves so we rush out and buy expensive products to fix our 'problems'.

Thanks all the same, but no thanks.

I feel absolutely inundated with things like this and I am your target audience as a 45 year old woman.

a saturated market

Yes as an over 40 woman I am literally never bombarded from dusk to dawn with supplements, powders, gels, injectables, creams, pills, programmes, perimenopause, menopause, post menopause, gyms, exercise brands, online counselling and surgery for the crimes of being a bit wrinkly and not as bendy as I was at 20. Please bring on more!

Or maybe get off instagram and start an actual business - one where the product or service is cheaper to create than what you can sell it for.

Are you a woman in her forties @Busybeeontwofeet ?

Take it you haven’t been into boots, Superdrug, holland and barratt etc etc in the last decade?

I agree with all the above. Thanks but no thanks!

Totally agree that good nutrition, exercise and sunscreen do a huge amount! I’m sceptical of a lot of the supplement industry too...But women do age differently to men hormonally and metabolically, especially from 40 onwards. During perimenopause/menopause, declining oestrogen affects muscle mass, recovery, energy and bone density quite significantly. Another factor is that a lot of women also under-consume protein without realising it. A healthy woman over 40 often needs roughly 90–120g+ of protein a day depending on activity levels — that’s roughly equivalent to 3–4 chicken breasts a day, which most women definitely aren’t eating.

So for me the gap isn’t ‘pink marketing’, it’s that women’s healthy ageing and strength needs still aren’t being spoken about or built around in the same way men’s have been for years.

I swear I’ve had this all rammed down my throat for years

are you a woman in her forties op? If so, have you not read a magazine? Or been to any high store health and beauty shop of H&B in the last decade?

and you’re not on SM?

Are you a chicken farmer?

I actually completely understand this perspective and honestly one of the reasons I became interested in the space in the first place is because so much women’s health/wellness marketing feels designed to make women feel permanently “not enough”. Where my frustration comes from is more that there also seems to be a gap between beauty/wellness marketing and actual practical support around things like strength, muscle loss, energy, recovery etc as women age.
But genuinely appreciate the honesty because I think a lot of women probably feel exactly the same as you do about the industry.

Are you not reading the responses? Please engage with the questions. We are telling you we're bombarded. The appropriate response is not to mansplain to us about our bodies in perimenopause - we already know.

This

OP don’t waste your time on this.
Not only is the market saturated, you don’t seem to really have much experience

Please... it's 'organic' chicken farmer for you. And no. But if the word chicken scares you, I can also talk in grams of peas.

Please don’t

As someone who is interested in this area, I'm interested that you feel there aren't brands and marketing pointed very specifically at women in this age group. We're being monetized like we're going out of fashion and I'm already irritated to the back teeth with being marketed at by being told how much an organisation cares about us forgotten forties plus women. If we didn't present a marketing opportunity, no one would give a rat's ass.

I genuinely wasn’t trying to mansplain - If anything, the reason I’m interested in this space is because women in my life have struggled and I’ve seen how confusing/noisy the whole landscape feels. What I’m actually trying to understand from threads like this is: in the middle of all the wellness marketing, supplements, influencers, HRT conversations, conflicting advice etc. who do women actually trust anymore? And what support feels genuinely useful versus exhausting or patronising.

Women are being bombarded with adverts for collagen, magnesium, HRT, do yoga, do weight bearing exercise, eat protein, buy this cream, wear sun screen, now there’s shampoo and hair care for menopausal women
buy this supplement - tumeric
buy this ashwaganda gummy
take menopause leave at work
there also clothing for menopausal women with hot flushes - m&s
Eye lash serums for thinning hair

i swear to god there is nothing else that can be monetised or marketed to women

Are you a woman? @Busybeeontwofeet
Are you over 40?

Filled out your survey but can't submit without giving you my email.address so have abandoned it.

I do understand what you mean and I’m sorry that’s how it feels, because I can absolutely see why women in this age group are exhausted by being constantly sold to. I think marketing is one thing, but another thing that genuinely surprised me when I started reading more deeply into this area was how under-researched women still seem to be generally compared to men, especially around ageing, strength, recovery, nutrition etc.
That’s actually a big part of why this became important to me in the first place. Not because I think women over 40 need another lousy brand telling them to “embrace the journey”, but because there seems to be a lot of noise and not always enough genuinely useful evidence-based support.

So no

You're asking about ageing women.
Your OP states A lot of women I speak to say they’re noticing changes in energy, strength, recovery, muscle tone, weight distribution and just generally not feeling quite like themselves anymore, even when they’re exercising and eating well.

That's just natural ageing isn't it? You can't expect to feel the same at 55 as you did when you were 25 all other things being equal.
There are a million and one bits of advice on nutrition, supplements, exercise for middle aged women.