YES, GYMS ARE BUSINESSES - BUT THEY HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY WHEN IT COMES TO EATING DISORDERS

Gyms are being called to help members of public with exercise addiction, photograph: CC

By Georgie Conway

05.03.18

As someone who visits the gym a couple of times per week, I enjoy a solitary workout. The idea of a gym instructor suggesting a member was showing signs of exercise addiction or an eating disorder seemed like an invasion of privacy.

Calls are being made, however, by anorexia survivors and eating-disorder charities across the UK, to emphasise the responsibility gyms have to help members with exercise addiction.

Suggestions have been made for gyms to look at the health information they collect and to encourage staff training. Some say gyms could prevent members exercising altogether.

The market value of the UK’s booming gym industry rose to £4.7 billion in 2017. Protein shakes and detox teas infiltrate our Instagram feeds, focusing wholly on body image. The competition to look fit is used as currency by the industry.

While gyms remain detached from a serious duty of care, for some members the facility provides a space for calculated calorie burning and weight loss. A report from 2017 found that people with eating disorders are waiting up to five years to see a specialist and have to wait 26 weeks to be assessed. The NHS faces problems with anorexia treatment and while gyms aren’t obvious sites for care, members’ health could be improved if the industry takes responsibility for the ‘ideal’ body images it encourages.

Gyms would need to invest in training and codes of conduct to facilitate care for members with eating disorders. Rather than stopping members from exercising at the gym, trained instructors could provide healthy exercise programmes that focus on building strength rather than weight loss.

This will have to come out of the back pocket of the UK’s gyms, but for an industry that projects extreme body types while continuing to ignore the effects, responsibility must be taken now.

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