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.

It's obviously an MLM

So what qualifies you in this field?

Maybe read Woman's Weekly as part of your research into this matter.

No. I'm 46 and sick to death of the constant narrative that women should be putting in some herculean effort to defy aging.

It's never, 'hey, just hit cruise and let some other sucker pick up your unpaid labour and enjoy your leisure time and get more rest'. It's always eat this weird expensive shit and pick up something heavy and don't forget to keep looking pretty.

Nope.

I completed the survey and came back to this thread afterwards and honestly I’m quite appalled by some of the responses here. I’m not really sure why OP is being attacked so aggressively when it sounds like a female entrepreneur is actually trying to understand what women want before launching another pointless product.

As a woman in my 50s with two teenage kids, I get targeted with endless ads for collagen powders and menopause supplements, but I actually agree with her point that there is very little aimed at women in the protein or fitness space generally. When I walk into Boots or look online, almost every protein product feels like it’s designed for men. Meanwhile I absolutely do notice changes in my energy, strength and recovery compared to 10 years ago. That’s just reality for many women as we get older, so I genuinely don’t understand all the hostility.

Seeing women entrepreneurs actually asking women questions and listening to feedback should be encouraged, not attacked. It’s just a survey, gals. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything.

Volatility was used to describe hormonal changes - so in that context we were considered too volatile in clinical studies because of the menstrual cycles and then later because of peri/postmenopause.

No need for such a thing. No one can avoid getting older and adding to the many brands selling factory-made stuff in a plastic tub is a tough gig.
Eat healthily (yes, more protein as you get older), do exercise (remember weight-bearing and balance), try everything possible to get as much good sleep as possible. Spend the money you save on plastic tubs of factory-made stuff on skincare!

Not another one…

That should have been money you save NOT buying protein powders, on nice stuff instead!

Why should we respond more positively to this kind of market research just because the entrepreneur happens to be a woman?

Thank you honestly, I really appreciate this reply and yes I am a female entrepreneur (if that wasn't clear!). And also appreciate you taking the time to actually do the survey! You’ve articulated much better than I probably did what I was trying to get at, not “women don’t get marketed to”, because obviously they do constantly, but more that there seems to be a need gap around strength, recovery, energy and healthy ageing in a way that feels genuinely relevant/useful for women. And genuinely, the feedback here (positive and critical) has been incredibly useful for me to read.

I've filled in the survey as I'm someone who does use protein powder and creatine to supplement my diet - not constantly, but as part of trying to hit a protein target related to exercise goals.

I'm a terrible cheapskate though and know what I'm trying to achieve and how to achieve it without paying for a 'premium product'.

If you read the thread, you will understand why this OP received the posts she/he did @ByAmusedNewt

They have outlined a picture that has no relation to reality. Boots, Superdrug, H&B…. You can’t swing a tampon for health for women products (not beauty, health). You can’t open a magazine or SM without being bombarded.

And yet @Busybeeontwofeet completely ignored the responses and tried to mansplain to us. In fact tried to convince us that our experiences were in fact wrong.

ghastly

Seeing women entrepreneurs actually asking women questions and listening to feedback should be encouraged, not attacked. It’s just a survey, gals

oh don’t be so bloody patronising @ByAmusedNewt and treat us like a 13 yr old spice girls fan from the 90s.

and as for calling us “gals”? Are you the OP’s business partner by any chance?! 😆

Thought you sounded like a man. That'll be your biggest problem. And you are showing it's stopping your empathy functioning

Are you going to find clinical research to solve this problem?

What a surprise

@ByAmusedNewt has no posting history whatsoever aside from just one post - in total support of this OP 🤔

It seems that what you are after, OP is insight on how to differentiate a product by means of its marketing, rather than by its actual content or effectiveness.

The health and wellbeing sector is already crammed with minimally-effective products that have been cobbled together for the sake of being able to make some distinctive marketing claim. And this affects women more than men because, more often than not, the 'distinctive' claim is something or other about womanhood (the underlying prejudice being that maleness is the default, so femaleness is something niche that provides a special marketing angle.)

I'm completely sick of being bombarded with messaging like this. There is a double dishonesty. First of all the baseline dishonesty of all of the grandiose claims made for wellness products that are essentially UPFs, radically unable to supersede the benefits of a normal healthy diet. And on top of that the fake differentiation for women versus men that rams home a kind of essentialism: men can be a million different things but women are always defined by their sex.

In the last few years I've seen dog foods advertised that claim to be breed-specific in their content. This is such an extreme example of fake differentiation that it completely reveals what entrepreneurs need to be hidden: how marketing trumps substance in product creation. Hopefully the whole house of cards will fall over soon.

If you wanted to aim a product at me, the marketing would have to be something like: Protein powder. It is high in protein. If for some reason you can't eat enough protein in the normal way, here is some more. Plain white packaging. Black letters.

The market is definitely saturated.

Whats a “functional” Dr?

I’m fed up of the constant bombardement from ‘wellness’ manufacturers telling us that there’s something wrong with us for looking older.

Eat well, exercise, get enough sleep. Take HRT if it helps you. We don’t need a hundred expensive useless supplements. Nothing is going to stop us ageing. We’re getting older and I for one am happy to embrace it! I feel liberated now I’m at an age where nobody is looking at me. I don’t have to look like a 20 year old model. The pressure is off now, and it’s wonderful!

That is a surprise!

Are you a woman?
If not, I personally as an aging woman would not want to be marketed to by you.
I do agree the market is saturated for us.

A quack

I just don’t believe the protein thing - it’s incredibly difficult to eat that amount of protein which suggests that it’s not what our bodies are designed to do. You sound pretty clueless OP which doesn’t inspire confidence.