As a teenager, Rob Ghahremani loved working out in his local gym, but he couldn’t use the resistance area because of the steps. The 27-year-old broke his spinal cord in a car accident when he was 10 months old and uses a wheelchair. “Accessible is a funny word, isn’t it?” he muses. “That gym was supposedly accessible, but you couldn’t get to the resistance area unless someone lifted you down.”
At least Ghahremani could get into the gym. Lauretta Johnnie, 51, once got caught in an entry turnstile and had to ask the receptionist to open the service entrance. “The receptionist kept saying: ‘Oh gosh, I’m so sorry!” recalls Johnnie, who is plus-size. “I don’t know who she was embarrassed for: me or her.”
When you think of fitness, who do you see? People like Ghahremani and Johnnie, being carried down steps or ushered through service entrances by blushing staff? Probably not. After all, when you can’t physically get into a space, the message is clear: you don’t belong here.
But Ghahremani and Johnnie do belong. Both are personal trainers involved in pioneering work to redefine an industry that has prioritised the young, slim and able-bodied. For an industry worth so much money – just under £5bn, according to a report out this year – the fitness world has been remarkably late to embrace consumers who don’t fit this mould. But it is finally evolving – albeit slowly – thanks to the inclusive-fitness champions proving that exercise is for everyone.
It is a message they are spreading through social media, which has made non-stereotypical gym users more visible. Plus-size Instagram fitness stars such as MyNameIsJessamyn and Nolatrees have thousands of followers. Sport England’s 2015 This Girl Can campaign was a viral hit, widely lauded for depicting a diverse group of women grunting and sweating while exercising, to break down the embarrassment many women feel in the gym. It was hugely successful: one study estimates that 2.8 million British women became more active in the year following its launch.
“Fitness operators are realising that they need to be more inclusive and are starting to understand the barriers that stop people from exercising,” says Helen Fricker of the market research firm Mintel. She estimates that a quarter of British women would swim more at leisure centres if there were female-only sessions, while 10% of all adults would prefer the option to wear less-revealing clothing while exercising. The most common reasons for this, research suggests, are body confidence and religious motivation.
Some gyms already offer female-only sessions and allow swimmers to wear modest swimwear, such as burkinis. But more work is needed. A report released last month by the government found that 3.5 million disabled people are at greater risk of poor health due to inactivity, and that disabled people are twice as likely to be inactive as people without disabilities. “Gyms need to be doing more to promote an inclusive and non-judgmental space,” says Fricker.
Read more The Guardian
