Fitness executives don't want that but store managers know not to alienate their best customers for someone who will join on a special deal, go for a month, and then cancel the first time they download RocketMoney and remember they have a gym membership.
Humanities scholars think fitness culture is harder on women than men so they surveyed 279 women online, 84 percent of whom had a gym membership, and found a lot of them didn't like having to wait for equipment or get unsolicited comments from men. Women aren't alone in that last part, men will also give unsolicited comments to men, but men recognize they are either truly trying to be helpful, and don't realize that self-conscious people who don't know what they are doing just feel more awkward, or they need to show how experienced they are. It isn't men or just gyms where that is the case. What golfer hasn't had a woman use an exasperated tone when explaining that the hole they are on has a dog leg so they should lay up?
Do you feel better reading this stuff about "zero tolerance" for any perceived subjective definition of harassment, which could be, 'Hey, you are supposed to wipe down the equipment after you use it', and 'safe spaces' and have the proper DEI mix? Of course not, you just don't want to feel terrible seeing other people and being seen. But welcome to social science academia, where they never fail to miss the plot.
All that pressure people that rich, western civilization has created for itself - not being seen or being seen too much - even extends to clothing fads. In the 1980s you didn't go to a gym and look cool without a headband and pastel leotard a la Olivia Newton-John, while the 1990s had high-waisted gym shorts and cut-off shirts. The survey results reveal that clothing today is still a way to show which Sneetches have stars and which do not.
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The sample size is too small, too rich and too white to apply to most women. Online also adds an additional layer of uncertainty to all survey results but gym companies know a lot of it is true. They push a 'fitness trainer' on new customers when those people are at their most vulnerable. Sure, the new customer may buy some useless supplements because they don't want to disappoint the earnest employee selling them but they may also quit because they feel too much pressure.
'Beautiful at any size' social media memes are enabling a lot of negative health outcomes, obesity could soon pass up cigarettes as the top lifestyle risk behind alcohol, but some won't get into better shape in the real world if they know the real world isn't always going to be kind.
As for me, I don't go to gyms because they have too much in common with new car dealers. Used car dealers are fine, but new car dealers fly giant American flags and claim to be capitalists while they use government to force the public to use them, you can't buy direct from Ford by law, and their smug demeanor when you walk in shows they know you have no choice. If a gym won't publish a price - and in my admittedly above-average-income California town there are a few who will make you drive there to get a price - or if the gym doesn't have a good vibe, walk out, just like you would from a car dealer.
In a free market, someone will want to sell you a membership just the way you are. After that, you just have to go. If you are the kind of person motivated by not wasting money, that will be an advantage.
Or you can work out at home. I have a gym in my house and every component in it I got for free from people who once decided they would work out at home but don't have the discipline. Some people do need to get in a car. I am the opposite. I won't get in the car unless my hair is combed and if I have to take a shower before I work out, I do not want to get sweaty again. So every day I have an alarm that interrupts my writing and tells me to go turn on the Pat McAfee show and get swole.
Whatever works, do it. Don't let gym culture or your own brain get in the way of living a longer, better life.
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