Do Skinny Models Perpetuate Eating Disorders?

Your members’ ideas about health, beauty, weight and fitness do not operate in a void. Television, magazines, newspapers and fashion shows all have women who are skeleton thin, and men who are ripped from head to toe. These unhealthy “ideals” can lead some to eating disorders, obsessive exercising and/or low self-esteem. Can and are you doing something to stop the perpetuation of this “beauty myth”?

The recent debate about fashion models being too thin brings this issue back to the forefront. A news piece by AHN Media Corp. says that Australia decided against regulating model size with BMI checks during its recent Australian Fashion Week, which went against the new trend set by other countries such as Spain, Brazil and Italy. Rather, Australian Fashion Week organizers allowed designers to choose models at their own discretion. This, of course, led them to choose super-skinny models for many of the shows.

Another pop culture influence is television, and the current season of America’s Next Top Model is another sad example of putting women who are unusually thin up on a pedestal. One episode had the models try and get booked for a runway show. The thinnest model, Jaslene, got the most positive comments, with one designer actually saying that she “has a great body.” Yikes! You should see this woman. She is so thin that it is hard for me to look at her. I don’t think she is attractive at all, and just wonder how all of her organs fit inside of her.

You members, especially young women, can be greatly influenced by what popular culture says is beautiful. Barbara Brehm, in her Instructor Training column, says you cannot ignore eating disorders in your clients: “Eating disorders … have the highest mortality rate of any psychological illness. Your feedback may help get your client into treatment.”

Hear Your Members ‘Loud’ and Clear

Leave it to the Internet to get people to speak their minds — or just to get people to say anything about everything. I guess that’s why we, the people who use the Internet to share information, were named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Think about it: It’s extremely powerful, how the Internet has changed the world.

In May, we published an article titled Ego-Surfing for Improved Customer Service. The article showed examples of complaints found on U.S. websites about health clubs. Recently, one of FM’s staff members stumbled upon a website called Loud Campus. The site is hosted by Cornell University, and allows its students to voice their opinions on the university and issues across the nation. Students can click on any number of topics, one of which brings up a host of comments about Cornell’s fitness facilities. Cornell has several fitness centers, about which we wrote an article in January 2004 titled Why Stop at One?

The site made me think what a great opportunity it would be for facilities to have a Loud Club site open to members only. This could accomplish several things: 1) It could be a way for members to meet each other by finding others with similar interests, thus growing your club’s community; 2) It could act as a forum for members to express their compliments and complaints about your facility and 3) Because you are able to view what your members, and your members only, have to say about you, you have the ability to improve things! I wonder if there are any facility operators out there doing something like this already? And, if so, have you used it to your advantage?

Justice and the Job Hunt

Think back to your last job interview. You were probably asked the standard questions: certifications, professional experience, references, ethnicity, religion.

What’s that? You weren’t asked where you were born, where your parents were born, what religion you are and whether or not you are a Muslim?

Then your name must not be Sukdev Singh Dhaliwal.

Dhaliwal is a Sikh who won $24,000 in damages from Bally Total Fitness when a California judge ruled that the company denied him a job in 2004 on religious and ethnic grounds. He was born and raised in California, but, during the interview, Dhaliwal was asked about his religious and ethnic background, and later denied the job.

According to Wikipedia, a Sikh can be recognized by his turban or beard, or by a steel bracelet on the wrist. That, apparently, was enough to raise a red flag for Bally management, and enough to cause them to ignore this country’s most basic employment rights.

Bally Total Fitness needs to worry about more than its bottom line if its management can look at a man wearing a turban, notice the color of his skin, struggle with the pronunciation of his name – then decide that, based on these factors alone, he is not a candidate for employment.

Is Bally's alone in its discriminatory hiring practices, or is this issue more wide-spread in our industry? If this story shocks you (and especially if it doesn’t), it might be time to look at your own facility’s hiring process and guidelines. Do they follow the law?

Is a Big Fine in Your Future?

If you attended the Technology Summit at the IHRSA show in March, you may have been a little freaked out. Speakers Michael Scott Scudder, owner of MSS FitBiz, and John Whitworth, business development manager of Ambiron Trust Wave, told facility owners that, if they weren’t PCI Compliant by the end of March, they could be fined up to $100,000 by the Payment Card Industry (PCI). Yikes! Amid the doomsday talk and technical jargon, something Scudder said jumped out at me: Being fined that much could ruin a club’s entire business.

The basic idea is that credit card companies formed a group and created some standards in order to pass along the cost of fraudulent charges to you. They created the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS), which every company that uses credit cards must comply with. If you don’t, and a customer or employee uses someone else’s card number illegally, you get fined. Also, PCI could keep you from using credit cards at all, which would basically wipe out your business. To give you an idea of just how big this is, credit card usage (including debit cards) in membership transactions went from 35 percent in 2002 to 65 percent in 2007, according to Scudder.

To be compliant, fitness centers must better control how they get credit card information and store it. Do you have member card numbers in some filing cabinet that isn’t locked? That is a finable mistake. Many more rules exist, and they can be found at www.pcisecuritystandards.org.

Being non-compliant should scare you. It scares me, and I don’t even OWN a club. However, is it time for fitness centers to hit the panic button and scramble to find experts to help them avert a financial crisis? I think sensible clubs can calmly contact their bank and software company and make the necessary changes without losing any sleep. No freaking out required.

Is your facility PCI compliant? Do you even know what that is?

Will You Be Successful or Significant?

If you attended the IHRSA Convention this past March and sat in on Augie Nieto's presentation, From Success to Significance, you might be asking yourself, like I am, whether you are on the path in life to be successful or significant.

The truth is, we never really know what dots are going to connect in life to lead us to where our lives will ultimately end up — despite the decisions we make and chances we take along the way. Augie, pioneer of the first piece of cardio equipment, founder of Life Fitness, crusader in the quest to find a cure for Lou Gherig’s disease (ALS), and now legacy, is a keen example of that. But, he has learned that if you have a passion for something, no matter what path your life takes, the dots along the way always end up connecting. In his presentation, Augie explained, “You can’t look forward and connect the dots. You can’t look back. What you have to do is find a passion and the dots will connect.”

I often think of Augie’s presentation. His spirit, his honesty and his message truly touched me. Augie's dots connected because he had a passion. Through his passion for fitness, he strove to make people’s bodies stronger. Augie says that his dad once told him, “Take the biggest risk you can, early.” Augie did, and with the eventual success of the Lifecycle and of his company Life Fitness, he, himself, became successful. Now, with his passion for finding a cure for ALS, he is striving to help science and to stop the disease from afflicting others in the future. With the millions of dollars he has helped to raise to date through Augie’s Quest, scientific progress has been, and is still being, made, and Augie has progressed from being successful to being significant. “How do you go from being successful to significant?” asked Augie. “If you’re gone and you’re successful, you won’t be missed. If you’re gone and you’re significant, you will be missed.”

We could all learn a lesson from Augie. The fitness industry is all about passion. Have you pinpointed what, specifically, your passion is? Will you be successful in our industry, or significant to our industry?

“Success is never final,” says Augie. “Failure is never fatal. What matters is passion. And passion allows you to do what’s right and what’s wrong.”

The Magic Pill

You tell members there is no magic pill that makes them look and feel like their ideal selves. It takes hard work and discipline to achieve their goals, and looking for the easy way out usually just loops them right back to where they started.

It’s time to start taking your own advice
But let's be honest. Aren't you waiting for a magic pill, too? You want your facility to become more successful, but you’re waiting for equipment and other manufacturers to make it happen. You hope jazzier exer-tainment options and more interactive bells and whistles that will draw new members into your facility in droves.

Stop waiting, starting doing
Manufacturers are doing their part. There are more options out there than ever before. It’s up to you to build on what they’ve developed so that your fitness center is making the most of new technology.

One step further
Try taking the new features offered on fitness equipment one step further. Did you just invest in new iPod-compatible treadmills? Have your personal trainers record a new podcast each week, then offer it as a free download on your facility’s website. You’ll add value to a membership, draw traffic to your site, introduce your personal trainers to a wide group of members and put your club’s personal stamp on a really cool feature.

Did you purchase interactive equipment that mimics dancing or playing a video game? Don’t stop there! Hook up with a local charity and organize a Dance-A-Thon to raise money. Post an eye-catching High Score board by the video game machine. The equipment can only do so much; it’s up to you to create a buzz and make these new machines a real attraction.

I say forget about magic pills. You don’t need them.

Mirror, Mirror

Forget, for a moment, your constant quest for new members. Step onto the fitness floor and take a look at the members you already have — the ones who have been with you for a while, and slowly but steadily made changes in their appearance and their lives. You can see the difference between the person they were when they joined and the person they’ve become, but can they?

We’re our own worst critics, and there are few people who look in the mirror without picking out one (or 10) things they’d like to improve. Helping your members actually see their success is a challenge, but it’s one that can help keep them coming to your fitness center.

Get creative
In the United Kingdom, nine women who collectively shed almost 500 pounds sought a physical representation of their success — and they found it at Colchester Zoo. The women adopted a baby hippo weighing roughly what they had lost to serve as a constant (and cute) reminder of their accomplishments.

Your facility can do the same thing for your members. What about teaming with the local animal shelter to host an adoption drive? List each animal’s weight, along with other pertinent information, and give your members the opportunity to lavish love on an animal that represents their hard-earned success.

Hold a food drive, and ask members to donate food items that total the number of pounds they’ve lost at your fitness center. Keep a running tally, and be sure to post it in the club where everyone can see. When the food drive is over, send out a press release to the local media so everyone can appreciate your members’ weight loss successes (and their generosity).

Partner with a local clothing store and present members with a $5 gift card each time they lose another 5 pounds. You’ll acknowledge their achievement and encourage them to reward themselves with a new outfit to fit their new bodies.

There are dozens of ways to hold a mirror up to your members’ accomplishments. How are you helping members take a moment to acknowledge the results of their hard work? What are you doing to encourage them to strive for even greater success at your fitness center?