Is the medical message too intangible for those who already struggle to fi t regular exercise into their busy lives?
ARRON WILLIAMS Life Fitness • EMEA special projects
“T
he central message of ‘exercise as medicine’ was designed for
clinicians and healthcare providers, as it fits in neatly within the health promotion framework. However, the general public tends to see it as too paternalistic. The industry has been pushing the same message for years,
but we’re not breaking the 12 per cent barrier, so we need to change. We have great products, facilities and people – it’s our marketing and service experience that’s letting us down. We need to emphasise the more immediate returns on the
exercise investment: you feel better, you have more energy, you’re less stressed, more relaxed and focused. We’ve been pushing the message of moderate exercise for 30 minutes a day, but why not focus on how that 30 minutes fits into the bigger picture and will enhance the rest of the day? Telling people exercise will lengthen their lives or ward off heart disease might draw them in, but it doesn’t sustain behaviour. Traditionally the industry has focused on the physical benefits
of exercise, but has overlooked the mental, emotional, social and spiritual benefits. Letting people know exercise can make them feel better on many levels and enhance the quality of their everyday life could be a message that resonates.
” February 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
JAY BREWER Nuffield Health • Head of physiology
As a healthcare system, we are too focused on negative health outcomes. At Nuffield Health, we now work to a
“W
bio / psycho / social model, focusing on good outcomes rather than bad. So instead of saying ‘if you don’t exercise, you will get high cholesterol, leading to heart disease, then death’, we say ‘exercising will give you a better quality of life, greater happiness (which is something the government wants to measure) and more energy’. We’re moving away from the message of exercise just to stop something bad happening, towards exercise to increase the chances of something good happening. People are easily influenced by their spouses and
line managers, so Nuffield Health is working to get line management to buy in to exercise. We’re using research we’ve undertaken with Ashridge Business School and the London School of Economics to show how exercise increases energy, output and productivity, and how those who exercise outperform those who are inactive. Children are an easy audience to engage with. Although
adults control their social time, children do have a large influence in this and are receptive to the idea of exercise.
” Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 33
hen promoting exercise, we need to start focusing on the positives.
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