In her article on health clubs, Zoe Williams says that “whether we’re using the gym or not, as a cohort, it’s not making us any thinner”, with the insinuation that we shouldn’t bother to look after our health (The gym is a genius con we should be ashamed to fall for, 6 January).
Williams falls into the common trap of believing that the only reason to lead an active lifestyle is to lose weight and look good. This myth must be debunked. Not only does calorie burning occur during exercise but the impact continues long afterwards, multiplying the calories burned by up to four times in the hours after you have stopped moving.
There are numerous lifestyle-related conditions that can be prevented or managed by being active. Looking at physical activity solely through an obesity-tinted lens ignores its physical, mental, social and emotional benefits.
Williams says: “Some doctors happily bandy about the importance of rigorous exercise, but experts on the obesity ‘epidemic’ have been questioning this advice for ages, and rarely recommend anything more demanding than walking and cycling.” But which “experts” is she referring to? All experts agree that obesity is caused by people simply consuming more calories than they expend through physical activity. They also agree that, to lose weight, we must reverse this equation and expend more energy (calories) than we consume. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidance Network recommends that weight loss programmes should include at least four hours a week of physical activity – more than enough to become out of breath.
In the fitness industry we understand that not every man, woman and child in the country should join a gym, but we deeply oppose Williams’ claim that “the gym is so much greater a capitalist con than the casino”: surely attending a gym or indeed any other physical activity class is quite the opposite of gambling with your health, let alone with your money?
One million people per day use our health clubs, whose membership makes up 12% of the adult population. As Williams points out, “the market penetration is phenomenal” – but this is due to our ability to respond to consumer needs, ie new exercise classes, equipment, opening hours, etc, not to mention our role in the wider objective of increasing the public’s physical activity levels. We would love to grow this to two million visits per day – in sharp contrast to her claim that gyms “are a good answer for elite athletes, everyone else should just go for a walk”.
We must raise the importance of physical activity in any format: going for a swim, taking long walks, playing sport, cycling to work, or going to the gym. We’d like a society in which being physically active is the social norm.
We could afford to dismiss Williams’ views if we were not in such a predicament as a nation. Supporting people to change behaviours is a challenge that requires a societal response: the fitness industry cannot do this alone.
Initiatives such as Change4Life provide a vehicle to galvanise this movement. So, while Williams is off to the sauna, we’re off to continue encouraging the nation to get moving.
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