New-year hobby planning drives uptick in DIY health and wellness projects

New-year hobby planning drives uptick in DIY health and wellness projects

The start of a new year is when millions of consumers try to make lasting changes in their lifestyles and habits, many aligning with their health and wellness ambitions.

While not unique, this trend’s knock-on effects are felt across a number of industries and sectors.

Furthermore, each generation sets its own health and wellness goals and is influenced by its own set of external pressures and expectations. So hobby planning around New Year’s resolutions is more diverse and changeable than you might expect.

To understand this interplay in more detail, Magical Butter looked at the kinds of projects people are picking for their 2026 resolutions as a result.

From New Year's Resolutions to Daily Rituals: How Gen Z is Redefining Wellness

The global wellness industry, which generates $2 trillion annually, is being reshaped by the habits and preferences of Gen Z and Millennial consumers, forcing brands and businesses within it to adapt, according to McKinsey.

The most significant shift experienced in recent years is one of routine; while health and wellness-focused hobbies might be adopted as part of a plan for annual transformation at the start of the year, they now play out day by day. So, for instance, rather than a person pledging to improve their fitness by exercising once a week, this is more likely to be achieved through meaningful, mindful reconfigurations of daily habits.

Diet is a particular focal point for hobby planning, because its impact on overall health—both in the short term and long term—is widely recognized by modern consumers. The weight management market is growing 9.94% a year, and the momentum it has achieved with younger people is reflected in other data sources.

For example, the International Food Information Council’s 2024 survey found that 66% of Gen Z respondents had adopted at least one specific diet in the previous 12 months. Compared with the 50% adoption rate for Gen Xers and around 40% for Baby Boomers, it’s clear that wellness matters more to the under-40s.

In terms of New Year’s goal-setting specifically, wellness habits continue to dominate resolutions made in different parts of the world. A January 2025 YouGov survey found that physical health improvements were the most common ambition, chosen by 52% of people for the following year.

DIY as a Central Principle

Another facet of modern wellness trends that sets them apart from their predecessors is a return to the do-it-yourself ethos. In the past, a person planning changes for the new year might have gone all-in on preprepared meals to cut calories from their diet. Now, cooking at home is far more commonplace. Research shows that between 2003 and 2023, this rose from 36% to 52% in men and from 69% to 72% in women. The same study found that men are spending more time on food prep each day on average.

That’s one of the reasons the kitchen gadgets market is expected to grow from $389.6 billion in 2025 to $582.3 billion in 2035. Consumers want to get involved in creating healthy dishes while still making it convenient. This is supported by the aforementioned McKinsey research, which shows that social media exposes Gen Z and Millennial consumers to more content designed to push them toward making wellness-related purchases than their older peers. As a result, although they account for just 25% of the market, they represent 40% of its spending power.

Wellness brands have emerged to cater to this trend. Demand for gadgets in everyday cooking appeals to consumers who want to take more control over the food they prepare, rather than outsourcing wellness-focused diet changes to processed, preprepared food suppliers.

The same principle applies to all areas of culinary hobbies and goal setting, whether that’s using hot air-powered popcorn makers to whip up a quick snack without relying on oil or adopting countertop air fryers to again reduce the reliance on fat in cooking, while also reducing energy usage in this context, tying in with sustainability goals.

The Safety Aspect

The rise in DIY kitchen-based health and wellness projects might speak to a generation-specific set of trends in New Year's goal-setting, but it comes with caveats. Chiefly, as consumers take food preparation into their own hands in greater numbers, the safety risks necessarily increase. For instance, according to the National Fire Protection Association, cooking is the leading cause of reported home fires in the United States.

Also important: increased vigilance when using new and unfamiliar ingredients, especially with on-trend botanical infusions, which often require precise temperature controls and extraction times that can be hazardous if mismanaged. The use of precision gadgets in the DIY cooking process can help address this concern, provided it's combined with adherence to the manufacturers’ preparation guidelines rather than a more slapdash, experimental approach.

How DIY Health and Wellness Projects Could Change Further in the Future

2026 looks set to be a year when consumers focus on the kitchen as their wellness hub. With DIY projects gaining traction, this will likely bring culinary skills to people who might not otherwise have developed them.

Whether this will stick in the long term is another question, one that has always been asked of New Year’s resolution-related trends. For something to avoid becoming a flash-in-the-pan fad and actually stay the course, it takes a tricky combination of convenience, provable efficacy, and social relevance. Factors such as increasing prices for premade meals and restaurant eating experiences might be as much a cause of DIY food projects staying the course as any health and wellness goal-setting.

This story was produced by Magical Butter and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.