There are two kinds of people, says fitness instructor Gemma Hughes: Those who go to the gym and those who don't.
Hughes, 31, is the first kind. As a self-described "chubby little girl," Hughes started working out regularly when she was 14. That was in the early 1990s, when step aerobics was all the rage. Hundreds of body-conscious women and men filled the classrooms at the fitness center.
“You couldn't get three people into those classes now,” she says.
As an instructor, personal trainer and director of operations at Body Dynamics Fitness Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., Hughes has witnessed the birth and death of numerous fitness programs designed to entice the elusive "those-who-don't" Americans into the gym.
But even as Americans become more and more educated about the benefits of exercise and the proper techniques — and as the fitness industry scrambles to satiate a public starving for the quickest and most friendly fix — we keep getting fatter.
According to 2003-04 data from the Centers for Disease Control, more than six out of 10 adults are either overweight or obese. The ranks of obese Americans have more than doubled since the late 1970s.
"Everyone says fitness is good for you," says Cedric Bryant, chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise, one of the world’s largest non-profit fitness education and training organizations. "But there's a huge disconnect. Very few actually exercise."
Exercise programs with any hope for success have to incorporate movements that are both easy and fun, Bryant says. And they have to simultaneously work faster to achieve the biggest payoff for participants.
Jane Fonda may have kicked off the nation's fascination with fitness routines in the 1980s, but going for the burn went by the wayside as we wised up about our workouts, he says. Fonda’s floor aerobics lost popularity as experts discovered that the high-impact moves sometimes hurt us more than they helped us.
And the movements for step aerobics, popular in the ’90s, were too technical. If you missed one step, you immediately fell 10 steps behind — leaving participants feeling clumsy and conspicuous.
Through the ’90s and into the 21st century, trends came and went. Tae Bo, Jazzercise, stability balls, spinning, boot camp.
Emerging fitness programs, or centuries-old exercises that are being reinvented, require less coordination than their failed predecessors. Pilates, yoga and programs emphasizing dance moves, like Zumba — one of the newest fitness crazes — are also low-impact and better for your body, Bryant says.
So, if more options are available and we're more educated than ever, why is America still getting fatter?
Hughes and Bryant alike blame lifestyle changes. Fast food is much more readily available than it was 40 years ago. Television remote controls make it easy to stay on the couch. Portion sizes are out of control.
"We've done a pretty good job of engineering physical activity out of our lifestyles," Bryant says. "And no one's figured out that magic formula to attract the couch potato."
That hasn't kept the fitness industry from trying.
Last year, for-profit health clubs brought in about $18.5 billion in membership, personal trainer and related service fees, says Rosemary Lavery, a spokesperson from the International Health Racquet and Sportsclub Association. The organization tracks both international and national health club membership, revenue and employment data.
Lavery says the fitness industry has been recession resilient and made about $1 billion more last year than the previous year. Health clubs brought in almost three times as much in 2007 as they did in the early 1990s.
She adds, though, that gym membership is down this year. And membership prices are about the same as they were last year. But those who do join gyms, she says, are spending more money on services while they're there.
Hughes says the services that succeed in bringing in the most people are those that are effectively marketed.
"A friend tells us about a trend and we want to try it," she says. "We're consumers. We're Americans.”