Taiwan Today

Private health clubs are helping encourage greater attention to the importance of regular exercise habits.

Like the residents of other heavily congested and polluted cities, people in Taipei have limited options for outdoor exercise. A shortage of park space and an absence of bikeways in the city makes the cramped situation seem even worse. Surprisingly, although a number of private health clubs have opened over the last decade to offer more practical venues for exercise, the alternative has been slow to catch on. Today, there are no more than fifteen health clubs serving a population of 2.6 million people.

The decision to join a health club is usually contingent on several factors: time, cost, and personal attitudes toward exercise. While initial membership charges and monthly fees can be steep when compared with clubs in the U.S., financial outlay does not seem to be a major obstacle. Instead, the growth in club memberships has been slowed by Taipei's unrelentingly hectic lifestyle, which crimps people's "disposable time," and by a generally negative disposition toward working up a sweat. The idea that exercise is worth all that effort has yet to take hold.

There are reasons. Taiwan's health professionals point out that people generally do not understand the importance of physical fitness because they have had inadequate education about what constitutes good health.

Lee Chu-wey, chief of the health education section in the Bureau of Public Health, stresses the need for more public attention to health awareness. The bureau has already initiated a program called Health Risk Appraisal, which focuses on individual needs by "helping people understand what habits contribute to poor health," she says. The program stresses preventive measures such as better nutrition, no smoking, and regular exercise.

According to Chao Li-yun, director of the department of physical education and sport under the Ministry of Education, one of the major obstacles to promoting better exercise habits is inadequate facilities. Indicating the seriousness of the current shortage, the Ministry recently authorized US$263 million for building thirty-six sports parks islandwide over the next four years. The plan also calls for constructing one hundred new sports facilities in schools, including swimming pools and ball parks that can also be used by the general public during after-school hours and vacations.

Although building more parks is part of the solution, both Lee and Chao indicate that changing the prevalent attitudes among both youth and adults toward exercise is equally important. For example, they point out that the traditional emphasis on intense study in preparation for high school and college entrance examinations is one of the most serious obstacles to encouraging a more exercise-oriented lifestyle among youth. Exercise habits should start early and last a lifetime, but students have little free time for extracurricular activities, and physical education has always taken a back seat to academic subjects.

Chao is currently revamping the physical education curriculum in an attempt to encourage students to include vigorous exercise as part of their daily routine. She has also initiated a competitive sports program in the schools, from primary to college level. The plan is long overdue, especially when compared with most other societies. Islandwide competitive team sports such as basketball and volleyball are only in their third year in colleges and high schools. The primary school programs began only a year ago.

"We need to start in the primary schools by teaching students to be more concerned about their own health," Lee says. "Academic advancement is not the only factor in success." She stresses that the development of health awareness requires not only educating children, but also winning the cooperation of parents and teachers. "Our goal is to make everyone understand the importance of health and grow to like exercise," Chao says. "We need to increase the number of people who exercise, and expand the number of exercise options available to them." Health clubs, she adds, will help promote this goal.

Private health clubs are already providing congenial places where adults can work on muscle tone, weight control, and relief of stress, while building greater energy resources. As one club advertisement reads, "Firm is beautiful! ─ So shape up and keep fit." Attitudes toward exercise are gradually changing, and for the growing number of people interested in pumping iron, jogging on treadmills, or aerobic dancing, selecting a health club is a fairly simple process.

In Taipei, clubs fall into three main categories, based on price, facilities, and services. On the lower end of the scale are the clubs designed primarily for hard-core weight lifters, usually males who work out almost every day, and perhaps a few male and female competition body builders. These are actually more like small gyms than clubs, and they usually provide little more than locker space, showers, exercise areas, a few exercise machines, and the normal range of free weights. Other amenities such as club towels, exercise clothes, whirlpools, and saunas are generally unavailable.

About half of the fitness clubs in Taipei fit into the middle category: they are modern, well-equipped, and geared toward a white-collar, middle-class membership. The clubs offer advanced-design exercise equipment, high and low-intensity aerobics classes, and extensive locker room services, all in a clean, comfortable environment. Trainers, sometimes with degrees in physical education, provide instruction and tailor exercise programs for the individual fitness goals of each member. The initial membership cost at these clubs varies from several hundred to over a thousand U.S. dollars. Monthly fees may run to a hundred dollars or more. Members are therefore composed primarily of business and professional people, with men making up 70 percent of the total.

In the Rolls-Royce category are clubs that cater to a clientele who want a place to be pampered as well as a place to exercise. In addition to workout areas, these clubs provide baths, saunas, professional masseuses, and cosmetic services such as facials, full-body skin treatments, and manicures. They usually have comfortable lounges, dining areas, video facilities, and on-screen financial wire service reports. Membership is usually restricted to one sex, but some clubs cater to both men and women.

Although a few of Taipei's health clubs have been operating since the early 1980s, most have opened in the past three or four years. This expansion reflects a growing interest in fitness, especially among middle-class professionals.

The print media and imported television programs have had a role in promoting the concept of fitness by conveying the widespread preoccupation in affluent countries with good health and the benefits of a proper diet and regular exercise. Local dietary changes have also played a role. Western food, available from fast foods franchises to steak houses, is now a part of weekly if not daily food preference.

The higher intake of fats and carbohydrates has had an impact on body weight – and obesity has become a widespread problem [see FCR, January 1990]. There is also a gradually increasing concern that air pollution from heavy city traffic makes outdoor exercise such as jogging counterproductive and even dangerous.

Despite these trends, entrepreneurs have been slow to set up health clubs because demand is still low. The high cost of club exercise equipment and soaring real estate prices and rental costs have also discouraged new openings. Investors in the leisure and exercise field are generally more interested in opening golf clubs, which have greater prestige and a track record of guaranteed financial returns. Businessmen who open gyms often are motivated by a personal interest in exercise and a desire to promote a broader concept of personal fitness, rather than by an intense desire to make big bucks.

Concerns involving club location, financial viability, and sufficient demand are at least not compounded by licensing complications. The government serves a regulatory role in many service businesses, and requires certification to protect consumer interests and safety. But at present, there is no special license or certification necessary to open a health club. Neither are there regulations on building, equipment, and staff standards. Although consumers have not yet complained of the absence of control, officials in the health department and education ministry have already expressed reservations about continuing to allow health clubs to expand without adequate monitoring.

Some entrepreneurs in Taipei have overcome problems such as start-up costs and the shortage of suitable rental sites in business districts where potential customers are concentrated, and have established viable clubs. One example is Sun-fish, a Japanese-owned and managed exercise and swim club located on Hsinyi Road, across from the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

The club offers modern weightlifting equipment, aerobics classes, and a 37x50 foot indoor pool. According to Tatsuya Mori, vice president of Sun-fish, the club has had to take a long-term view of its investment. "We did some preliminary market research," he says, "and found a high-income population and a relatively undeveloped health club business. There is good investment potential here, but it could take some time because fitness awareness is only beginning to develop, and then primarily among white-collar workers."

Location is the key to success in the health club business, and finding and keeping a convenient site is just as important as providing good service or attracting new members. Optimum sites are within easy walking distance of offices or high-rise residential areas, and along the city's major thoroughfares. Peak hours at health clubs are after-office hours, between 6:00 P.M. and 9:00 P.M. on weekdays, and Saturday afternoons.

In time-conscious and traffic-clogged Taipei, members appreciate having their club nearby. For example, Chang Tsai­ mei walks from her office to work out at Leader's Fitness Club on Chunghsiao East Road, one of the city's major arteries.

"When I started working, I really missed not exercising as much as I did when I was in college," she says. "I'm lucky that the club is close to the office. My husband and I often go there to exercise together after work." To accommodate heavy work schedules that often extend into the evening hours, some clubs open as early as 7:00 A.M. for people who want to start their day with a good workout.

The Taipei Gym chain is an example of the difficulties health clubs face in Taipei's volatile real estate market. The chain opened in 1986 and had four branches at its peak two years later. Today there are only two branches: one in the upscale neighborhood of Kuangfu South Road in eastern Taipei, and the other on Hsinsheng South Road, across from National Taiwan University, in the southern part of the city. Rising rents and the unwillingness of landlords to rent to health clubs forced Taipei Gym to close its other two branches. Landlords often shy away from health clubs because they are unfamiliar with the business or they are wary of the damage that the heavy weights and machines may inflict on their property.

Longevity in a rental location does not eliminate worries about landlords. For example, the Clark Hatch Executive Fitness Center, a branch of an international fitness club chain primarily geared toward business executives, was forced to move early last year because they were unable to renew their lease. Their site for the past decade had been in the centrally located Bank of America building on Minsheng East Road. According to owner Clark Hatch, the club expended considerable time and effort before they located their present site on Tunhua South Road. The major criterion was proximity to their old members and their old location, the city's financial center.

While there is a wide range of prices and services among Taipei's health clubs, membership is surprisingly uniform. The average health club member is a middle-class professional between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five (primarily in the thirty-to-forty age group). Declining physical fitness and a fast-paced lifestyle have led this group to see exercise as a road to better health, more energy, and retention of a youthful appearance.

There is also a growing awareness that the city's lifestyle generates health problems. Clark Hatch, visiting Taiwan during a tour of his Asian health clubs, says that in the years since he first opened in Taipei, he has noticed that an increasing number of new members cite relief of stress and weight reduction as the primary factors motivating them to join.

For many new members, a health club is a novel concept. According to James Kao, a trainer at Leader's, most members are unfamiliar with regular exercise routines, and they usually know virtually nothing about weightlifting as a form of exercise which is adaptable for nearly everyone. For the uninitiated, exercise machines are a bit frightening. But an hour of instruction illustrates how the same machine can help heavy-duty body builders increase muscle mass or help others just gain and maintain taut and toned figures. Women are pleased to learn that using weightlifting machines will not produce bulky muscles, but instead improve muscle tone without significantly increasing muscle size.

Other misconceptions are common as well, including worries about exercise during pregnancy. "The greatest misconceptions concern prenatal and postnatal exercise," Hatch says. "Once women find out that they are pregnant, they immediately want to take a leave of absence from the club. But carefully planned prenatal exercise can lead to easier childbirth." Taipei health clubs have yet to offer the sort of special exercise programs for expectant mothers that are now almost as widespread as Lamaze classes in the U.S. (In fact, Lamaze instruction is offered in only one Taipei hospital.)

Generally speaking, finding new health club members is a slow process. Publicity has not been very productive. Aside from small-scale advertising campaigns to accompany initial openings, health clubs employ few if any promotional techniques. Most new members are introduced by existing members or are drawn in by street-level advertisements. The owners feel that full-blown promotion campaigns yield few results. "The average person sees the ad, knows what the club offers, but still doesn't come," says Yeh Jwei-feng, president of Jwei-Feng Body Building Center, one of Taipei's oldest gyms. He estimates he has spent US$37,000 in advertising over the years, all with little success. "Many people know that exercise is good for them, but they still don't do it," Yeh says.

And that includes registered members. It is difficult for health clubs to keep their members active. While listings based on the number of people who have signed up and paid their fees may run up to a thousand members, perhaps fifty are regular. The health clubs acknowledge that there is a high membership turnover rate. Some members lose interest after a month, while some sign up, pay their fees, and never show up. In acquiescence to this erratic interest, and also to attract non-residents, some health clubs offer memberships for one, three, or six months.

What sort of people join health clubs? "They are a little more concerned about their health than the average person," Hatch says. But even those who take the first step and join a club are often unclear about what their exercise habits and goals should be. According to Mori, "Our members at Sun-fish know they don't exercise enough, but they don't know how to increase their exercise levels. So they come here to see if a health club will help them improve their habits."

Because of the lack of familiarity with exercise and health clubs in particular, consumer education plays an important role in the industry. All clubs stress the necessity of an initial interview during which the member sets goals for an exercise program and is given a thorough introduction to the equipment. But trainers can only do so much in encouraging members to follow their respective exercise programs. The ultimate motivation has to come from the individual. This is where the problem lies. Too few people are sold on the idea that strenuous and regular aerobic and anaerobic exercise (at least twenty to fifty minutes, three times a week) are essential to fitness and good health.

Given the high standard of living and contact with the West, Taiwan would seem ripe for the fitness craze prevalent in other developed nations. Yet health club members and other exercise aficionados remain a minority, and are regarded by peers as an anomaly. Says James Lei, a member of Taipei Gym, "My friends don't understand why I work out. They say they're already tired from work, why would they want to get more tired from exercise? But I don't see it that way. Exercise makes me come alive."

While many people are aware of the need for exercise and its contribution to overall health, they have been lackadaisical about increasing exercise levels. Moreover, joining a club is an expensive proposition.

High membership fees effectively exclude a significant portion of the population, most obviously students and people with limited disposable income. Cindy Ma, a civil servant in her early thirties, does not lack the will to exercise but, as she says, "There are no places convenient to home or work where I can run, swim, or do anything. I can't even think of joining a health club. My budget won't allow it." But as the population becomes wealthier, the number of people who can afford to exercise in private clubs also increases.

As more exercise places, public and private, open for use, it is attitudes not facilities that will determine the quality of public health. It is still a commonly held view that exercise is for those who have plenty of time to spare and nothing better to do with it. "Exercise needs commitment," says body builder Yeh Jwei-feng. "But a lot of people don't feel exercise should pull them away from a busy schedule. They aren't willing to give it even half an hour."

Health club operators are doing their part to emphasize the importance of good exercise attitudes and habits among the public, and Yeh is one of the major promoters. In conjunction with the ROC Body Building Association, of which he is president, Yeh has initiated an ambitious campaign to increase awareness and understanding of body building. He has established clubs on college campuses in order to increase participation in body building competitions and is the local representative of the American magazine, Muscle Fitness. In an attempt at mass education, Yeh has had issues of the magazine translated into Chinese, and plans are underway to publish the Chinese editions regularly. He is also producing a video explaining and demonstrating body building techniques in order to expose more people to the benefits of fitness training.

And it is happening, albeit slowly. Ten years ago, health clubs attracted only foreigners and the occasional Chinese body builder. But the membership profile changed in the late 1980s. Most health clubs have an 80-percent Chinese membership, and women make up 30 to 35 percent of the total. The staff is also predominantly Chinese. There is currently less than a fistful of foreign trainers or instructors in Taipei's clubs. Moreover, the coaches are usually graduates of physical education departments at local universities, and aerobics instructors are frequently dance graduates.

Although concerned about the lack of certification and quality control in the health club business, Chao Li-yun feels that the clubs augment the government's efforts to promote public health and fitness. With the right set of regulations to protect the consumer, "the increase in the number of health clubs is good for Taiwan," she says. Health clubs encourage a change in attitude: personal well-being is more than material success, academic achievement, and peace of mind; it must include physical fitness.