Wellness is the New Business

Nilma Dole

The first thing that your relation or friend who sees you after a long time might say is: “My! You’ve put on weight!” It’s embarrassing when you live in a Sri Lankan society that judges you on how you look as many can be stereotypical and insensitive others especially when it comes to their figure.

Hence, today’s fastest growing market in Asia for entrepreneurs to tap into is ‘wellness’ which is used to mean a healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of well-being. This wellness trend is now the in-thing for losing weight, for preventing diseases and for feeling great about yourself.

Wellness can be categorized into spas, health clubs and eating nutritional food supplements, according to the experts. In every nook and cranny of the country, there are foot massaging clinics, beauty salons, health resorts, ayurveda treatments and many more.

The cosmopolitan Colombo folk lead hectic lives where they hardly have time for themselves. True to this effect, the modern and intelligent entrepreneurs have made a business our of wellness.

In fact, wellness today isn’t a luxury (as thought before) and anyone earning a middle-range salary can afford a worthy spa treatment since there are now about 40 spas and health clubs around Colombo including the uncountable number of spas at hotels around Sri Lanka, making the prices competitive.

Others deem spa treatments as a necessity for gifting loved ones a special treat or a holiday from work.

“One of the ways in which I help my employees help my company is giving them free spa treatments so that they will be relaxed in order to tackle the job better,” said the CEO of a leading furniture company in Colombo. Everyone needs a break!

Health resorts have been famous that Sri Lankan Ayurveda treatments have been recognized internationally where tourists come especially to the country to relax or recover after an operation.

The internationally renowned Siddhalepa has a Ayurvedic Health Resort in Wadduwa with spas in Colombo and many in Germany and Austria.

Speaking to the Daily News was Sophie Liebert who is the Managing Director and founder of Sanctuary Spa that deals with an interesting range of spa treatments including one that you can share:

“The trend of spa treatment is now beginning to surface with many opting to choose special spas to feel good and relaxed after a hard day’s work. We have become health advisors and doctors so that we can understand every aspect of your body”.

With regard to wellness, there is also lifestyle changes you need to do in order to attain optimum wellness. According to nutritional experts, one has to eat a balanced healthy diet, get plenty of exercise, eat the right amount of food in order to get essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.

However, as a result of busy lives, there is no time for balancing your work and eating what is correct. “More often than not, we tend to eat junk food and never eat the nutritional food that we need as fast food tends to be easier to access and economical,” said nutritional doctor Dr. Permasamy.

Maintaining the right balance of food and making healthy decisions is all about making the right food choices and also will power. “If you have the will power to lose weight, then you can do it with the right food choices,” said Lasanthi, a busy and beautiful financial controller.

In addition to this, there are supplements available on the market like ‘Threepala’ and ‘Optifast’ which seem to be too good to be true.

“Many nutritional supplements work to prevent you from having unhealthy food cravings but will give you a balanced nutrition with essential vitamins and minerals. We need healthy supplements that use 100% natural substances to help you lose weight,” said Dr. Stig Steen, a world-renowned Swedish cardiologist who devised a healthy and natural supplement called the ‘Natural Balance Shake’ offered by Oriflame in Sri Lanka. Many are skeptical when it comes to using aids to nutrition but everyone has their own body metabolism rate and should decide for themselves what is best for them, after consulting their physicians.

The invasion of the West with their fast food restaurants and unhealthy eating habits has penetrated the East and now after the negative consequences, we have to get back to our roots. Moreover, the moment, money comes into play, values and ethics change.

In the words of renowned Indian kidney specialist Dr. Ravichandran, he said that society should only take what is necessary from Western ideals by inculcating the local culture too. “At the beginning, they said that you should spend lavishly and now after the economic recession, the West are trying to bring back old values saying that you shouldn’t be too lavish and development should be sustainable”, he said.

Further, the doctor commented that the traditional culture that has been passed from our ancestors are quickly being forgotten. “We prefer to import all our food, which is high in acids containing preservatives and we hardly grow our own food nowadays - even our agricultural system doesn’t teach the young student how to plant a tree!”, concluded the doctor.