Diaper rush: Conquering a $9 billion market no-one wants to talk about

CHICAGO/TOKYO -- The time may not be far off when more adults need diapers than babies as the population grows older, potentially a huge opportunity for manufacturers of incontinence products - if they can lift the stigma that has long constrained sales.

The market for adult diapers, disposable underwear and absorbent pads is growing fast, up 9 percent last year to $9 billion, having doubled in the last decade, according to Euromonitor.

But manufacturers like market leaders Essity and Kimberly-Clark Corp reckon only half of the more than 400 million adults likely to be affected by weak bladders, are buying the right products, because they are too embarrassed.

Companies are trying various methods to change attitudes, including making products more discreet, avoiding terms like diapers or nappies, and placing items in the personal care aisle, next to deodorants and menstrual pads, rather than in the baby products section.

They are also trying to normalize discussions around the subject through advertising.

In Japan, where adult incontinence products have outsold baby diaper sales since around 2013 due to a rapidly ageing population, market leader Unicharm Corp has adopted the phrase "choi more" in its advertising, which translates as "lil' dribble", to make light of the problem.

"What we are doing is trying to let people know that incontinence, even among young people, is normal," said Unicharm spokesman Hitoshi Watanabe.

The company is focusing particularly on people with mild bladder issues where it sees the biggest growth as people lead more active lives. Unicharm's sales of absorbent pads and liners that target this market were up 8 percent last year.

In the US, market leader Kimberly-Clark has this year given its 35-year-old Depend brand a makeover, introducing thinner, softer and more fitted products that can be worn discreetly, in an effort to make them more acceptable.

The changes are just the latest in a decade-long attempt to win over consumers, which started with manufacturers dropping the 'diaper' label, to loosen the association older customers might have with a loss of control in their life.

Yet it is still difficult for companies to persuade people they should buy specially made incontinence products.

"People keep the fact that they have incontinence secret from their loved ones, from their husbands, brothers and sisters – this is a deep secret for many consumers and yet it's just a fact of life, it's a physiological reality," said Fiona Tomlin, who leads Kimberly-Clark's adult and feminine care division.

Manufacturers have been particularly keen to win over women, who are more than twice as likely as men to experience bladder weakness, due to childbirth.

Kimberly-Clark has reached out to them directly over the years in light-hearted ad campaigns featuring actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Kirstie Alley.

SECRET'S OUT

Kimberly-Clark's Poise brand is aimed at younger women like Ellie Foster, a 31-year-old from Maine, who has struggled with leaks since having her first child a year-and-a-half ago but is too embarrassed to buy products that might help her.

"At first I did, but it was definitely weird picking out adult diapers to wear," said Foster. "You feel like you're in the old lady section."

Sweden's Essity, the global industry leader, is also trying to reach a younger audience with its TENA brand and a new line of black, low-rise disposable underwear called Silhouette Noir.

The advert's tagline reads: 'secret's out: 1 in 3 women have incontinence'.

Around 12 percent of all women and 5 percent of men experience some form of urinary incontinence, although conditions vary from mild and temporary to serious and chronic, according to the Global Forum on Incontinence, which is backed by Essity.

Essity said it tries to package and market its products in a way that avoids associations with ageing.

"Designing products and packaging it as feminine and discreet as possible for females and as masculine and discreet as possible for men helps," said Ulrika Kolsrud, president of Essity's health and medical solutions.

Getting the message across to potential customers can sometimes be a tricky path to tread. A few years ago, SCA - from which Essity was spun off in 2017 - mailed samples of its products to Swedish men above 55, only to receive a barrage of complaints.

But efforts are starting to pay off. Five years ago, adult incontinence products were used by around 13 percent of the target adult female audience in France and the UK and that is now closer to 20 percent, according to research firm Kantar.

That does, of course, leave huge potential for further sales growth. As Kolsrud puts it: "If incontinence was a country, it would be the third largest country in the world."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ageing Singapore: 90-year-old noodle vendor helps keep foodie culture alive

SINGAPORE - Leong Yuet Meng cannot walk more than 10 meters without assistance. Yet, the frail 90-year-old still runs a wonton noodle stall in downtown Singapore, selling at least 200 bowls on any given day.

Leong rises around 4 a.m. to do some accounting and prayers before her son drives her to the local market to buy ingredients for the day ahead.

From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., she is hunched over a pot of simmering noodles, slicing char siu - barbecued pork belly - or serving bowls of bargain-price hot food.

"I try to do this as long as I can, but I am old," said Leong, one of many older food vendors or 'hawkers' in the Asian city-state.

"I am afraid that all the experience that I have accumulated over the years will be lost. None of my children can take over."

The city has about 110 hawker centers - open-air food courts set up to house former street vendors in an effort to clean up the island in the 1970s - and their over 6,000 stalls are mostly packed.

The government has said it will submit a bid this month to add its hawker culture to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

"We're putting the finishing touches (on the nomination)," Yeo Kirk Siang, a director at Singapore's National Heritage Board, told Reuters. Nominations will be accepted until March 31 to be included on the list next year.

Celebrity chefs Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay have effused over typically Singaporean dishes like chicken rice; some hawker stalls serve up the cheapest Michelin star meals at $2; and last year's Hollywood hit film Crazy Rich Asians showed its stars tucking into heaped plates at a famous Singapore night market.

But the enthusiasm cannot mask one underlying problem - Singapore's hawkers are getting older and their better-educated sons and daughters are increasingly shunning cramped, sweaty kitchens for office jobs.

The average age of hawkers is 59, according to a government report, well above the national workforce average of 43.

"UNESCO is not a silver bullet, it is just one of the things we need to do... to keep hawker culture alive," said Yeo.

FACING EXTINCTION?

To encourage Singapore's street hawkers to resettle into the centers in the 1970s, the government heavily subsidized hawker rentals.

While around 40 percent of older hawkers still enjoy low rents, new hawker stalls are sold in an open bidding process, often making rentals much more expensive, especially at popular sites.

One hawker, 38 year-old Lance Ngo, said that finding hawkers in their 20s "is more difficult than finding gold".

The government has introduced schemes in recent years to get veteran hawkers to pass on their skills to the next generation, teach business skills and subsidize equipment and rent to reduce overhead costs.

This has attracted some young hawkers looking for an escape route from dead-end office jobs.

"A lot of young people do see it as an avenue to be able to create and be their own boss," 32 year-old coffee stall owner Faye Sai said. "This has attracted younger hawkers and career switchers but that's a minority."

But others say more needs to be done to make the business more lucrative longer term.

"Before applying for that (UNESCO), I think they have to settle the problems in front of them first. Twenty years down the road when all the older generation pass away, who is going to take over?," said Alan Choong, a 24-year-old owner of Sino-Japanese fusion food stall Prawnaholic.

Lee Sah Bah, a hawker in his late 60s who sells Chwee Kueh rice cakes at less than S$2 a portion, says he also faces the prospect of his legacy dying out.

His 2 daughters - one a lecturer at a university in Melbourne and the other an accountant in Singapore - won't take over his business.

"I don't think hawker centers will exist in the next 50 years," Lee said. "It's too much hard work, we have to put in 16 hours a day sometimes. It's hot. Kids nowadays wouldn't want to work here."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

For seniors, hearing trouble linked to greater risk of death

Older adults with hearing impairment may have a higher risk of dying than people with normal hearing, a recent study suggests.

The reasons for the connection are not clear, researchers say, but the results point to hearing impairment at least as a sign of, and possibly a contributor to an older person’s survival odds.

“In the simplest terms, the worse the patient's hearing loss, the greater the risk of death,” lead author Kevin Contrera said of the study’s findings.

Past research has linked hearing problems to a variety of negative health effects, but few studies have looked directly at mortality risk, Contrera and his colleagues write in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery.

Two thirds of adults over 70 experience hearing impairment, said Contrera, a medical student at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

He and his colleagues looked at data on 1,666 adults from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2005-2006 and 2009-2010, as well as death records through the end of 2011.

The people included in the analysis were all over age 70 and had undergone hearing testing. Using World Health Organization criteria to define hearing impairment, and accounting for individuals’ age, the researchers found that people with moderate or severe hearing impairment had a 54 percent greater risk of dying than those with normal hearing. Mild hearing impairment was linked to a 27 percent increased risk.

The researchers then also adjusted for more variables that could influence hearing and death risk, including sex, race, and education, as well as heart risk factors, like stroke, smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

Even after accounting for those factors, the study team found that people with moderately or severely impaired hearing had a 39 percent higher risk of death than those without hearing problems, and those with mild hearing impairment had a 21 percent greater risk.

Piers Dawes, who was not involved in the new study, notes that hearing impairment can directly affect a person’s health and wellbeing.

Older people with hearing loss tend to have more difficulty with communication, are more socially isolated, and are less able to care for their own long-term health conditions, said Dawes, a hearing loss researcher who teaches at the University of Manchester in the U.K.

“These sorts of secondary problems could potentially impact on health, wellbeing and mortality,” he said.

The study observed the link between hearing problems and death, but more research is needed to know if hearing loss is somehow a contributing cause, Contrera cautioned.

For instance, the researchers did not investigate whether treating hearing impairment reduces the risk of death, which would help to clarify the relationship.

In his own research, Dawes noted, “Among people with hearing loss, hearing aid use was linked to better communication and better general health, but not with reduced risk of mortality.”

A majority of older people suffer from hearing impairment, Dawes said, and hearing loss could just be a marker of being older and sicker in general.

Although the study focused on seniors, the findings may have value for people of all ages, Contrera said. “Although hearing loss is most common in older ages, certainly the earlier the treatment, the better,” he said in an email.

Addressing hearing problems using "communication tactics, hearing aids, or wireless communication devices could promote social engagement, increased physical activity and better communication with doctors and other health professionals,” Dawes said

These positive effects could, in turn, reduce mortality risk, he said.

“Hearing loss should be appropriately identified and treated in patients whenever possible,” Contrera said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Want to retire at 60? Here's 5 smart ways to prepare

(Editor's note: Life is full of uncertainties. While you can never really predict life’s twists and turns, you can at least prepare for them by thoughtful planning. For the month of September, we are running a series of articles on various protection basics to help you address your own need for greater insurance planning.)

MANILA - Mention retirement and most of us see hours spent relaxing and enjoying the rewards of our life’s work. Under the most ideal circumstances, you would have saved enough to tide you through this phase of your life. By then, you would have less cares with the children grown and the house paid for and with life becoming become much, much easier.

Unfortunately, your life plans do not always pan out and there is the real threat that despite working during all of your productive years, you can still reach retirement with less than what you need in your bank account.

Even if you have stashed away what you think are sizable funds to see you through, remember that you would probably live for 20 or so years after retirement—long enough for your savings to run out.

Considering that old age is also the time when most of us cope with health concerns, being cash strapped at this time could be particularly difficult. Unfortunately, it is a harsh reality for many senior citizens.

How much you would need to protect you through your retirement years depends largely on a number of factors, such as your lifestyle, income, and expectations, so there is no one right number for everyone. You can, however, take steps to protect yourself financially when you reach your retirement years.

By building up passive income sources, you will be able to generate an income stream to protect you in your senior years. Although there are no hard and fast rules on how much you should have in passive income sources to cover your needs, you would want to be able to cover 70-80 percent of your current expenses from both passive income sources and your retirement savings.

To know how much you should be able to cover, estimate how much you expect to have versus how much you expect to spend. The difference is the amount that your passive income sources and retirement funds should be able to cover.

Let’s look at the numbers. If you’re a 30-year-old earning P50,000 monthly today, plan to retire at age 60 and expect to live up to age 85, you will need to have around P26 million to cover your financial needs. That’s because your P600,000 annual income today will just be worth around P330,000 30 years from now due to inflation (which we conservatively computed at 2 percent per year).

To have the same purchasing power that you currently have 30 years from now, you would need to have at least P1.1 million a year. Multiply that by 25 years, and that’s P26 million.

Don’t be discouraged if the number you come up with turns out to be huge. It should simply serve as a wake-up call for you to think about your retirement years. Simply put, protecting yourself in your senior years means taking appropriate measures early enough, when retirement is still a distant reality.

Here are five ways that you can protect yourself for your sunset years:

1. Start building your nest egg early.

You need to have time to build up your nest egg. The earlier you start, the better for you. Your returns build up over the years, allowing you to have enough to cover your later years. Savings accumulated over the years can grow substantially through capital gains or through the magic of compounding, or both. If you are starting retirement planning late, it simply means that you need to adjust your investment strategy so that you can have better yields, allowing you to make up for lost time. Ideally, you should be putting 10-15 percent of your income into your retirement fund.

2. Invest in a good mix of assets.

The last thing you would like to do is to put your life savings in one asset which suddenly loses its value, wiping out your retirement funds. Allocate your investments across various funds exposed to different kinds of risks—traditional safe havens like money market placements and government bonds, as well as more aggressive and high yielding instruments such as equities and foreign exchange. You may also want to put some money in real estate, art, and businesses.

3. Cover all bases.

Do remember to protect yourself against life’s many other risks which may force you to dip into your retirement savings. For instance, you may wish to purchase health insurance to protect yourself from the financial challenges that health problems can bring. Also look into getting accident or disability insurance, and if needed, fire insurance for your home and auto insurance for your vehicle.

4. Review your retirement plan from time to time.

Depending on your life changes, your retirement needs may grow. It is therefore important to check if you need to recalibrate your pension payments to reflect your needs more accurately. Retirement planning is a lifelong process of constant realignments to ensure that you are adequately protected in your later years.

5. Consult a financial professional.

If you have no time to understand all the different investment choices available to you, one short cut is to put money in various mutual funds or Unitary Investment Trust Funds (UITFs), which are professionally managed, pooled funds invested in various instruments to meet different investment objectives and profiles. To ensure that you are saving enough and investing according to your financial goals, do not hesitate to check with a financial professional, who can guide you through your investment decisions.

With careful planning and discipline, you can protect your future and ensure that your retirement years are blissful and stress-free.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com