As Gen Z and millennials prioritize wellness, certain stocks stand to gain from the shift

Let’s kill the cliché up front. Gen Z isn’t “more into wellness” than other generations. They’re just more digitally expressive about it. Every sleep hack, cortisol-lowering mushroom blend, and anxiety-tracking app gets posted, rated, memed, and monetized in real time. But here’s the real tension: while the wellness conversation explodes on social platforms, the actual business models trying to capture that demand are breaking under their own weight.

In 2025, the investor narrative says Gen Z’s obsession with health, calm, and sleep should make wellness stocks a rocket ship. Reality says otherwise. Most wellness startups are still chasing CAC-heavy DTC playbooks that peaked in 2021. Public markets are punishing companies that confuse consumer buzz with compounding unit economics. And brand-led businesses are bleeding from loyalty gaps and post-pandemic drop-off.

The shift isn’t in demand. It’s in model viability. Wellness is no longer about the product. It’s about the loop. And the stocks that can ride that loop? They’re not wellness companies. They’re infrastructure companies disguised as wellness.

Spend is growing. That’s not the debate. McKinsey’s wellness industry estimates are pushing $5 trillion globally, with Gen Z and younger millennials disproportionately driving growth in mental health apps, teletherapy, supplements, wearable tech, and boutique fitness. But the revenue spread is thin. Instead of consolidating into category leaders, the wellness economy has fragmented into thousands of micro-players chasing TikTok virality or subscription stickiness.

That fragmentation creates an investor illusion. Just because millions of Gen Zers are spending money across dozens of sleep apps, mood trackers, and nutrition brands doesn’t mean any one of them is actually monetizing at scale. What looks like a cultural wave from the outside is, underneath, a churn-heavy, CAC-bloated mess for most operators.

And it’s not just a retention problem. It’s a value perception problem. Gen Z isn’t loyal to wellness brands—they’re loyal to the identity behaviors those brands help them express. If that expression gets boring, rigid, or too expensive, they bounce. So the companies that work? They don’t just capture attention. They embed into ritual.

When investors look for Gen Z–aligned wellness stocks, Apple rarely makes the list. But it should be at the top. Not because of hype. Because of infrastructure. Apple Watch adoption in the 18 to 35 demographic quietly crossed a major threshold in 2024, with nearly half of US users in that age group using some form of daily tracking—whether it’s steps, sleep, heart rate, or menstrual cycles. But the real play isn’t the hardware. It’s HealthKit. Apple’s health API layer now supports third-party fitness apps, insurers, employers, and healthcare providers who want access to behavioral data. That’s not wellness content. That’s infrastructure leverage.

Apple doesn’t need to create a mindfulness product. It just needs to let Calm, Headspace, Peloton, and other apps run on its rails. Then it monetizes through ecosystem lock-in, device sales, and eventually, subscription services that feel invisible because they’re embedded in daily life. There’s no CAC problem. No retention issue. Just default presence.

That’s what the real Gen Z wellness flywheel looks like. Not a better yoga mat. A better SDK.

Teladoc was one of the biggest pandemic darlings—and one of the hardest post-COVID crashes. In 2021, it looked like telehealth would permanently reshape care delivery. By 2023, investors realized that episodic video doctor visits weren’t sticky enough to justify the valuation. But in 2025, something interesting is happening: Teladoc is rebranding itself, not as a digital clinic, but as a wellness infrastructure provider focused on longitudinal care.

This matters for two reasons. First, Gen Z is more likely than any previous generation to seek therapy, mental health support, or behavioral coaching—but less likely to commit to traditional delivery formats. Second, employers and insurers are desperate to contain costs while offering “soft” benefits that matter to younger employees. Teladoc’s pivot to blended AI triage, CBT programs, and mental wellness modules isn’t just strategic. It’s survival.

What they’re building now is a system that captures low-cost, high-frequency health engagement that feels like wellness, but operates like managed care. If they pull it off, they’ll become the middleware for Gen Z’s health identity. But they have to solve one key challenge: how to keep the user engaged once the crisis moment fades.

If you think of Lululemon as an apparel brand, you’re missing the point. In 2025, Lululemon is a distribution infrastructure company with apparel margins and platform adjacency.

Here’s how that works. First, Lululemon’s store footprint gives it an unmatched advantage in hybrid retail. They’ve started piloting wellness bays in select stores where smaller brands can showcase supplements, wearable devices, and even mental wellness journals. The brands pay for placement, Lululemon captures brand halo and basket uplift, and the consumer experiences it as lifestyle continuity.

Second, the company’s Mirror acquisition—originally panned for lackluster engagement—is being retooled as a channel. The Mirror device is now API-compatible with other wellness content providers. Think meditation startups, nutrition modules, and interactive therapy tools. In short: Lululemon is turning hardware into a delivery system. The result is that Lululemon doesn’t just sell leggings. It becomes the trusted access point for Gen Z’s evolving wellness identity—whether that’s movement, rest, or mood regulation. And that kind of trust, at scale, becomes monetizable across more verticals than apparel alone.

Oura hasn’t gone public yet. But the IPO chatter is back. And the reason is simple: the product is fine, the SDK is gold. The Oura Ring works because it’s discreet, sleek, and delivers reasonably accurate sleep and readiness tracking. But where the business gets interesting is in how Oura has moved from B2C sales to B2B integrations. Insurers are embedding Oura metrics into workplace wellness dashboards. Health systems are exploring Oura-based risk scoring. Even dating apps are toying with circadian rhythm compatibility nudges.

That kind of data embedding doesn’t require massive marketing spend. It requires product design that anticipates second-order use cases. And that’s where most wellness companies fail. They design for consumer delight—but forget to build pipes for institutional value capture. If Oura executes on its SDK roadmap, it won’t be a wearable company. It’ll be a behavioral signal company—one that sits upstream of decision systems in health, insurance, and maybe even employment.

Now let’s look at where this breaks. The average wellness brand still thinks success comes from building a strong social presence, going viral with a signature product, and converting that awareness into subscriptions or DTC sales. It worked—briefly. But it doesn’t scale. Not anymore. Here’s what happens. You build a pretty brand. You get a spike of interest from TikTok or Instagram. Your product starts selling. You raise a seed round. But the customers churn, the subscriptions cancel, and your retention cohort flattens after 30 days. Now you’re paying twice as much for CAC, offering discounts to get them back, and watching your LTV sink.

It’s not because your product sucks. It’s because you built for desire, not for behavior. And in wellness, behavior is everything. If your product isn’t part of a loop—sleep, wake, eat, move, reflect—then you’re just a moment. And moments don’t compound. The other big myth? That community will save you. It won’t. Community is a multiplier, not a moat. If your value prop requires constant content creation, emotional labor, or vibe maintenance, it’s not scalable. That’s not a business. That’s burnout in a Canva template.

So what does that mean for investors trying to ride the Gen Z wellness boom? Don’t chase cool. Chase infrastructure. Look for companies that can capture not just one expression of wellness—but the behavior loops behind it. The ones that design for re-use, integration, and habit continuity. And what does it mean for founders? Don’t ship features. Ship rituals. Build products that reward return, not just discovery. Build models that work even when engagement drops. And partner with platforms that can embed you into life—quietly, consistently, and with margin.

The game isn’t to become the face of wellness. The game is to become the layer it runs on.

Gen Z’s love for wellness is real. But their behavior reveals something deeper than hype cycles or TikTok trends. They’re building new life scaffolding—digital, mental, metabolic. But they’re not loyal to brands. They’re loyal to routines. So if your product doesn’t evolve with the user’s life structure, it won’t survive the next scroll.

The companies worth betting on aren’t those with the loudest brand voice. They’re the ones embedded where Gen Z doesn’t even notice—because it’s just how they move, sleep, think, and manage stress now. This isn’t about capturing attention. It’s about becoming the background layer of better living. If you’re not building for that, you’re not in the wellness business. You’re in the campaign business. And campaigns don’t scale.