From Obesity Rise Not Fattening Fitness Firms:
Some of the biggest names in the fitness and weight-loss industries are struggling to sign up members, and sales of home exercise equipment are sliding despite the obesity epidemic.
Interesting use of “despite” there. Anyway, companies like Weight Watchers and Nutri/System aren’t growing, despite the growing need for their services.
Companies that sell gym memberships and equipment are also suffering.Nautilus Group Inc. said last month it would cut an unspecified number of jobs after a steep drop in quarterly sales and income resulting from increased competition and weak consumer spending.
Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp., owner of 420 health clubs, cited similar problems when it reported a 58 percent drop in quarterly profit last August.
The Chicago company, which operates under its own name as well as the Crunch and Gorilla Sports brands, said overall membership revenue was down 9 percent for the quarter. It had also found it difficult to sign up new members last year.
“A lot of it stems from the economy,” said analyst Reed Anderson of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. “Ultimately for Bally (customers), it’s a discretionary purchase.”
Not all fitness businesses are doing poorly though:
Heavy participants in these “kindler, gentler” activities are women over 55 — the nation’s single fastest-growing group of exercisers in the Unites States, he said.That trend could explain the standout success of Curves International, the women-only fitness center chain that Entrepreneur Magazine earlier this year called the fastest-growing franchise in history.
“The conventional fitness industry is out there targeting 18-to-32-year-old men and women who are generally comfortable with the way they look. They had written off older women,” Curves founder and Chief Executive Gary Heavin said in an interview. “Perhaps the most important key was that we created an environment that was comfortable.”
Privately held Curves has rocketed from its small-town Texas roots in 1992 to more than 6,000 clubs with 2 million members, by offering 30-minute low-impact circuit training for a low monthly membership fee of around $30. A new Curves opens about every four hours.
Curves’ unthreatening environment is “appealing to overweight, nonathletic women who’ve never done anything,” Lauer said.
Curves’ unthreatening environment is “appealing to overweight, nonathletic women who’ve never done anything” — and not so appealing to young, athletic men who’ve played a number of sports.