Earlier this year, the Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) reiterated its “Weight Management Years” initiative to promote healthier diets and lifestyles. This move followed research published in The Lancet, which found that by 2021, China’s obese population had reached 402 million, the highest in the world. With the government’s push, companies, brands and platforms have been actively trying to leverage the growing interest in healthy lifestyles. As a lifestyle platform, Rednote has naturally come out on top.
Between January and 15 May this year, Rednote users generated notes on weight management in the millions, and engagement in the billions. The top three topics in the categories were: fitness and weight loss, which made up a third of the notes, 16% about health and wellness, and 14% about food and beverages. Trending hashtags range from fat loss lifestyle to building muscle, all the way to how thin people can gain weight.
There are currently 4 growing trends in the weight management category on Rednote: eat, play, care and move. Eat mostly refers to the NHC weight loss menu, which saw its engagement grow 394% in 90 days, with over 3.19 million views. Play is gamified weight loss from brands such as JD.com or Decathlon, where you can earn a 100 RMB (13.91 USD) coupon for every 500g you lose during its weight loss challenges, to the workout app Keep’s in-app medals. Care means the traditional healthcare and wellness methods that are more gradual and gentler on the body. Move refers to casual workouts like “5 minutes quick exercises” that you can do at your workplace.
As a lifestyle platform, Rednote is behind a lot of the “lazy person’s workout” trends that break intense training apart into bite-sized chunks in one’s daily life. With China striving to get healthier, many brands are trying to reach young consumers. Rednote is already shaping how they do that.