Gyms do little in the battle against obesity

Nov 7 2007

Research from the University of Leicester in England has found that the booming fitness industry has had very little effect on the obesity epidemic.

According to the researchers, despite the increased popularity in recent years of gyms and private health clubs it has done little to dent the UK's growing weight problem.

A study by the research team has found that whereas wealthier people are attracted to join such organisations, the less well-off are left struggling to find ways to combat weight problems.

The study also contends that gyms, fitness magazines and manuals often focus on keeping in shape for image reasons rather than for health reasons, and says the industry has been able to make a profit by attracting richer members using "seductive marketing" without providing a "sustainable approach to fitness".

It must however be noted that the study focused on America which has more than 20,000 commercial health clubs and a culture some might argue which is far more geared to 'looking good'.

Dr. Jennifer Smith Maguire of the university's department of media and communications, insists however that the rapid growth in private clubs in the UK means the research can be applied to Britain and elsewhere.

Dr. Smith Maguire says over recent decades many Western countries have experienced a strange paradox, with fitness and exercise industries expanding alongside problems of inactivity and obesity.

She suggests the commercial fitness industry benefits from the scientific legitimacy and political urgency bestowed on population health issues, such as inactivity and obesity, but is in fact ill-equipped to address those issues for a number of reasons.

Dr. Smith Maguire says in the U.S. half of all commercial health club members are in the top 20 per cent of income earners who can afford excellent services and an enlightened approach to fitness.

But she says at the bottom end of the market, middle and lower income earners can afford fewer and lower quality services and the very bottom, are totally excluded from the market, and those are the very individuals most likely to be inactive and obese.

Dr. Smith Maguire says the fitness industry perpetuates the myth that health is an individual matter and says that inactivity and obesity are problems for society as a whole and they require collective solutions.

Dr. Smith Maguire suggests that physical exercise could be reintroduced as an integral part of everyday life, rather than yet another activity to be squeezed into an already shrinking supply of free time.

As governments worldwide estimate the escalating costs in health care associated with soaring obesity rates, experts agree that the problems are now so great that only national initiatives at government levels are likely to have any effect.

Obesity is projected to cost the UK £45billion a year by 2050 by which time only 10 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women will be the right weight for their height.

These figures are comparable to the U.S., Australia and many other developed countries.

According to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) latest projections by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

At least 20 million children under the age of 5 years were overweight globally in 2005.