Watch this and Chill

Britain has a problem with obesity, but you wouldn’t know it. There are 7,009 gyms in the UK. It’s probably higher than that cause of the number of dodgy, unofficial gyms in someone’s basement. But still more than the number of McDonald’s (1.439). There are probably several gyms near you, especially in any town centre.

How did we get to this point? Gyms were always there, but I can’t remember when gyms held such sway over us that we talked of gyms as one of our main activities. The nation has gone from being one where outside sports football and tennis have been replaced by faceless corporations that offer memberships of £29.00 a month. It’s now normal to want to pant on a running machine in front of a TV showing Jeremy Kyle with the sound off, that’s if people are actually using their memberships.

For the 18-25 age range who are predominantly using these chain gyms, they have a handy space to come to that isn’t the pub or the club, and it doesn’t involve actually talking to anyone. We’ve reached a point where it’s perfectly normal for a man to complement another man on the size of his biceps and it’s fine. A strange turn of events for sure.

There are now more shops selling trainers and ‘athleisure’ than there are suit shops. In fact, these companies are so large that Nike has a value of 30 billion dollars. Shops such as JD Sports sell clothes for workouts that never gets worked out in. And then there are the ‘personal trainers’ – about five per gym at any time, and this is a serious career prospect for many.

At the same time, we have a serious obesity problem. For every large town centre gym, there is a chicken shop or three. We may be getting slightly fitter, but it’s a strange way to go about it. Meanwhile the clubs are closing, bars are too expensive, so the gym continues to be the main way for young people to socialise.