What you need to know about Generation O and its Hong Kong invasion

They're taking over Asia.

A research report has observed that in eight markets across Asia, an acute disconnect between awareness that better lifestyle choices mean improved personal health, and action for a healthier lifestyle, especially in the most developed Asian locations such as Hong Kong.

According to a release from Sun Life Financial, based on its research, HKSAR citizens are the least positive in Asia about their overall health – physical and mental –yet they are also least motivated to act accordingly.

The findings are part of a larger survey showing that Asians are most affected by and concerned about health and lifestyle conditions that often can be preventable.

Here's more from Sun Life Financial:

The research highlights the fact that, while Hong Kongers aged 25-55 years are in line with their Asia peers in ranking personal health as very important to them they scored lowest on the importance they gave to living a healthy and active lifestyle every day.

“What we are seeing is the emergence of what we are calling Asia’s ‘Generation O’ — a demographic that is overworked, overstressed, and generally overwhelmed,” said Wim Hekstra, CEO of Sun Life Hong Kong.

“The malaise is especially evident in Hong Kong. While Hong Kongers want to make changes in areas of their lives that are largely within their control, such as exercise, nutrition, and stress management, that desire hasn’t yet been successfully converted to action that leads to sustained, behavior change.”

Despite being one of Asia's least positive about both their mental health (43 percent are content compared to 64 percent regionally) and their physical health (only 46 percent versus 62 percent), Hong Kongers are least motivated to attain and maintain a healthy lifestyle (51 percent versus 72 percent).

They also perform poorly relative to others in Asia across many health-related behaviors investigated, such as failure to do regular exercise (63 percent versus 56 percent) and sleeping less than 6 hours a day (30 percent versus 32 percent).