Undervalued Investment

Last weeka colleague was telling me about the status of a new rec facility being built on her campus and the resultant opportunities and challenges.  One of the latter was that membership rates and some services were going to increase (very modestly I might add) over current fees at the older facility currently in use, and some patrons were balking at these increases despite the fact that they’re getting a fantastic new multi-million dollar facility.  In her estimation, this was a result of patrons undervaluing their health and/or the role that such a facility could play in their health – some of them can’t see the long-term value gained and are instead focused on the short-term expense to their wallets.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts or simply paid attention to our society at large, you know this isn’t unusual.  Living in Chicago, I see more people – in general – who are interested in their health based on the demographics of the city and the specific areas in which I live and work.  The rural setting in which my colleague works though is much more common in the U.S. (along with suburban areas) than the ultra-dense urban setting, and I’m more than willing to bet the perceived importance of preventive health measures is lower there, although I’ve not researched this.  Why?  A few reasons, including social norms, image and career management, and the types of jobs in the region, all of which are related.  The short version is that it’s a heck of a lot easier to cast aside exercise and healthy eating if it’s of little consequence to your friends and family, your job, and your image or self-presentation.

How do we get people in these areas to pay more attention to the preventive side of their health?  I don’t know.  It’s an open-and-shut case logically, but we humans don’t really make logical decisions, we make emotional ones.  So maybe we need to tie into that somehow to get people to take action…

And We Wonder Why

The fitness industry has a bit of a challenge in that it sells what I sometimes call “a product nobody wants.” Obviously that’s not true, but what I mean by it is that a large number of people in this country want the end results gained from exercising at a fitness facility – better health, “better” appearance – but don’t want to put the effort in to get them. As a result, facilities constantly battle for the same (relatively) small percentage of the population that consists of regular exercisers since it’s theoretically easier to get those people (and it’s also true that in business it’s easier to keep your current customers than acquire new ones).

So to attract those “non-users,” facilities need to be vigilant about the ways they market products and services, and fitness professionals need to be mindful of how they present themselves, in order to draw in those people. And yet, I regularly – without fail – observe things in the fitness industry that would turn off and possibly intimidate the average non-exerciser, and those of us in that industry then have the gall to wonder why we can’t attract new customers. Case in point, I attended a fitness business conference and trade show last week called Club Industry, at which there were numerous attendees dressed for educational sessions like they were about to head out on the town, wearing clothing that showed off the curves and the muscles. If these people are wearing that type of clothing to a professional event, I’m going to take a wild guess that they wear similarly revealing work attire – and I can tell you that this isn’t really all that wild because I’ve seen it too many times to count. Wow, what a great way to make non-exercisers feel comfortable when they walk into an uncomfortable and intimidating environment. Good job there, folks.

This is just an isolated example of how the fitness industry shoots itself in the foot, but it happens in other ways, including company branding and the names of products and services. If fitness professionals are going to keep doing these types of things, then we at our respective facilities should just expect to continue to have to fight over that same small percentage of regular health-club customers rather than growing our customer base.

The Ultimate Doctor’s Note

Obviously many people use acute illnesses to excuse themselves from certain activities, and some people use their overall chronic health condition for the same purpose.  This is a new one for me though – apparently an inmate appealed to the court that he was “too fat” to execute, which was scheduled for Tuesday.  He claims that state food and a sedentary lifestyle – having been jailed in 1986 for a double rape and murder – have led him to gain weight and that lethal injection therefore isn’t safe for him.  You know, I figure why not just try it and see what happens?  Couldn’t be any worse for him than what he did to his victims.

Weekender: The Holy Grail

Walter Bruening knows the secret to a long, healthy life…besides good genes…

It’s Not All-or-Nothing

Earlier this week the government released new physical activity guidelines for children and adolescents, adults, and older adults that are simultaneously more and less specific than previous recommendations by researchers.  There have been two schools of thought among researchers and practitioners for the past several years, with some advocating any activity as better than something and others pushing to get Americans to exercise nearly everyday since that’s where the most health benefits lie.  These guidelines lean more toward the latter, which I think is a good thing – tell people what they need to do and encourage them to do it.  The only danger lies in the common all-or-nothing mentality that a lot of people have (in my experience) with regard to implementing and maintaining healthy behaviors.  For example, one of the cardiovascular exercise guidelines equates to approximately 30 minutes of activity for five days of the week.  There will definitely be people who will hear that and think, “I can’t do that five days per week, so forget it,” and won’t do anything then.  I’ve written here before about the dangers of that mentality, and it’s especially important that people keep it in mind as exercise research and recommendations move more firmly in the direction of “more is better (to a point, of course).”

One side note – I disagree with the press release’s characterization of these guidelines as “the most comprehensive of their kind.”  Leave it to the government to be behind AND get its facts wrong.  The American College of Sports Medicine has issued multiple versions of exercise recommendations over the years, and the most recent version from around 2003 had similar cardiovascular guidelines, although the government’s is slightly more detailed in duration and frequency of exercise. However, the ACSM guidelines provide more information about exercise intensity, and more specific recommendations for resistance training and stretching.  Granted, the ACSM guidelines are a little more geared to health professionals, but the information is and has been there for anyone to access.

Whichever source people use to get their exercise advice, they need to challenge themselves in meeting the recommendations yet keep their goals realistic initially and then progress.  For a lot of people, trying to follow the guidelines to the fullest right away is a recipe for failure.