Gym membership for teens

[nappyaddict]

Do you think it's a good idea or not?

I used to use the school gym from the age of 14 but that was with people my own age and encouraged by our PE teacher to improve fitness levels. I left that school at 16 and didn't join another gym.

What do we think about allowing teenagers to use gyms with adults in them where advertising is as much about body image and looking good as it is about fitness?

Most of my friends starting using gyms when we were 18 and 19. A good chunk of them including ones that have and haven't had kids yet said that they look at photos of them on their 18th birthday and we all had typical skinny teenage bodies. Somewhere before turning 19 we had all plumped up and got wobbly tummies. This is when we all joined gyms, but a lot of us have found once the wobbly tum appears it can be quite hard to get rid of and it also very difficult to get back to the fitness we naturally had a few years before from doin regular pe lessons, swimmming lessons, netball club, hockey club, gym session etc.

My thinking was that if I had continued to use a gym once I left school I may have kept my figure (not forever, but for longer) and also kept my fitness at the same level and it would have continued to be fun going to the gym as opposed to a chore and something that has to be done now.

[Zalachenko]

I'm trying to encourage my teenage dc to at least not be afraid of the gym (as poor dh is ). I reckon being able to use a gym is a good skill to have at uni. Also, using a gym encourages a v positive (IMO) approach to body image - if you don't like it (floppy under-arms; bad posture; flabby tummy; etc etc) you can do a programme to fix it. You don't have to hide in your room bemoaning it.

Also you do in fact see people of all shapes and sizes as well as ages in many gyms, so they encourage positive body image in that way. They are not all full of Barbies and Kens.

[nappyaddict]

This is true. My gym seems to be particularly overrun with OAPs

I love the fact that despite their age they are still trying to keep fit and don't think that they are past it and there's no point anymore so to speak.