Fitness is one of the biggest money-making machines out there. The fitness industry rakes in $17.6 billion in annual revenue, the diet and weight loss industry exceeds $40 billion and the supplement industry pulls in around $20 billion annually. I find it sad that the extras and short cuts make more money than good old exercise, but that’s another topic for another day.
For our purposes here, I will use the term ‘fitness industry’ to encompass all three of the above listed industries and their products.
Fitness industry insiders would have you believe they make such a huge profit because so many people are over weight and trying to do something about it and that new scientific breakthroughs in the field are giving us more knowledge, and thus more products, to get results. Others would argue that Hollywood’s ever growing influence has women, and in smaller numbers, men, running for quick fixes and gimmicks to help them shed weight fast. To an extent, all of these points are valid.
But the real reason the fitness industry is such a giant money maker is because they are smart, and they want you to feel dumb. They make you think that you have no idea how to get in shape, and that you have to shell out thousands of dollars to have someone show you/force you/teach you how. This isn’t true, and you know it. You know what you should and shouldn’t be eating, and you know you need to move more and sit less.
But we still buy into it. Gym memberships cost hundreds of dollars annually. Zumba, kick boxing and yoga classes cost extra and personal trainers are upwards of $50 per session. All your workout apparel- shoes, clothes, heart rate monitors, pedometers, BodyBuggs, etc.- can rack up a few more hundreds of dollars. Toss in DVDs, treadmills, hand weights, food scales, diet books, magazine subscriptions, supplements, race fees, and diet foods and soon you are paying a boat load for something many don’t even stick with.
Think about it: what was the last fitness product you bought, and why? Was it a DVD you saw advertised on TV to finally have the secret to losing your belly bulge? Was it the newest shoes touted to make you faster or prevent injury? Was it a box program that promised you results with little time or effort?
The advertisers know that you want to get in shape, and if they can make you feel like you can’t do it without them, then you will fork over as much cash as necessary to learn the secret. But, guess what? There is no secret. You know it and I know it. Save your hard earned cash, and get great results by doing two things: research and working hard.
You can learn everything you could ever want to know about fitness by doing a little research- real research. Skip the biased weight loss websites and magazines and go for the scientific facts of how exercise effects the body. Pick up a book on kinesiology (the science of human movement) or exercise science from the the library (for free!) If you know what the experts know, you won’t have to pay for them to fill you in. Then get to work.
You can then spend all that dough you saved on a smaller wardrobe.
Image via craveonline.com.
