Trends | Mind, body and soul

Over the past decade, INDIA TODAY chronicled a nation accelerating rapidly even as the strain of that pace became increasingly visible. The magazine wrote about bodies breaking early. About pain that no longer waited for old age. About heart attacks arriving without warning. About stress hiding behind gym memberships and weekend getaways. Depression is no longer treated as weakness or indulgence.

The gut is no longer about digestion alone either. It is about mood, memory and immunity. Urban diets, processed food and stress are damaging a system Indians were once genetically blessed with. Food has turned from pleasure to strategy. Indians are questioning carbs, sugar, oils and portion sizes with new urgency. Eating right is no longer niche advice. It is a mainstream response to soaring diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

Medicine is no longer waiting for disease. It is racing ahead of it. Predictive health has entered clinics and homes, using AI, genetics and imaging to forecast illness before symptoms appear. Semaglutide and similar injectables promise dramatic weight loss and diabetes control. But they also reveal a deeper shift: medical shortcuts are being sought for lifestyle failures.

Culture has shifted eastward. Korean pop culture has moved from subculture to mainstream influence, shaping youth identity, fashion, language and aspiration.

Family life changed too. Marriage stopped being destiny. Single women claimed space without apology. Companionship got new meaning. Pets are no longer kept; they are raised. Ageing, too, has been reimagined. Seniors are rejecting dependency and choosing independence, with community living, assisted care feeding a fast-growing elder economy. It was a decade when between ambition and anxiety, convenience and consequence, the country began asking harder questions of itself.