“A woman gets to a certain age and all she wants is to be left alone,” said Viv Groskop in The Guardian. Well, no chance of that – because the “menopause gold rush” is in full flow.
Public awareness of menopause and perimenopause has improved in recent years but with that has come a “rapid expansion” of companies and individuals who “see menopause as a lucrative market”, said University College London researchers. The results of their survey of 1,596 women, published in Post Reproductive Health, suggests that women may be “vulnerable to financial exploitation” from the “marketing of unregulated menopause products”, and from menopause information on social media “that may not be grounded in evidence”.
Menopause has ‘hit prime time’
The menopause industry is now worth billions globally. Women are promised cures for some of the most debilitating symptoms – night sweats, hot flushes, fatigue, brain fog and anxiety – if they buy “specially branded supplements, teas and even pyjamas”, said Kirsty Wark in a BBC Panorama investigation last year.
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Once something that women dealt with “in isolation”, menopause is now being experienced by a generation who are “less willing to suffer in silence” and more “proactive” about their health, said Courtney Rubin in Women’s Health. They engage openly with their symptoms. And when, all too often, their doctor dismisses their worries, they “ravenously” consume information online and demand “better solutions”.
“The slow-dawning realisation that women might be slightly underserved after centuries of demonising female ageing has unfortunately coincided with the high-water mark of aggressive capitalism”, said The Guardian’s Groskop. So the market is flooded with celebrity-endorsed menopause products, and treatments follow fads, rather than being rooted in science and tailored to a woman’s specific needs. "Menopause influencers” dominate Instagram timelines, the menopause “hits prime time” in special NFL Superbowl adverts, and Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena Williams and Drew Barrymore are all partnered with companies that sell menopause products.
The speed of change from taboo topic to something that’s constantly discussed can arguably make it harder to navigate the menopause. The streams of new opinion and “menopause management” products don’t make it easy to find accurate information or make helpful choices.
‘Happy medium’
Last week, the government announced that “menopause checks” would routinely be incorporated into the free NHS Health Checks for women, ensuring those “experiencing perimenopausal or menopausal symptoms get the right information and support”.
Perhaps, with this shift to make doctors actively address menopausal concerns that often go unrecognised, we can arrive at a “happy medium in the world of menopause, where it is a phenomenon that is neither constantly being marketed at us nor swept shamefully under the carpet”, said Groskop. As it is, “we have gone from a time when the word was barely spoken aloud to an era when it’s hard to find a podcast that is not discussing testosterone gel”.
