Rise in alternative health care

Australians are getting more keen on alternative medicine. Over the past decade, the proportion of Australians who have paid for alternative health services has increased from 7.2% to 9.5%, according to new research from Roy Morgan. 12 % of women have seeked help for their health problem outside the traditional system.

Has the hospitals failed in helping us? Are we seriously sick, and desperately bailing the hospital ship to find a cure? Hmm. Let´s face it: We actually live longer than humans ever had, and are healthier - but it still doesn´t make us happier.

Is the increase showed in the graph just another signal of how we try to find happiness through physicalities, materialism and things? Instead of going inside to change our attitudes, we want a pill or a potion. I haven´t found data on how Australians seek medical care overall; perhaps numbers are increasing there as well; perhaps this is a symptom of a time where we try to be perfect and flawless, and every sneeze becomes a flu? Or is our need of health services a call out for care, for someone to listen to and touch us? Is it a "I want to be loved" in disguise? For women, is this a way for the one who always care for everyone else, to finally get a healing hand....?

No matter what, there is an openness for brands to be care takers, selling nutricious varieties of their food and drinks, offering services and therapy, pampering. See the craving for alternative health as a craving for care, and you see an emerging market, waiting for love.