On most weekday nights, the gym is packed with young professionals sweating
it out on stationary bicycles, swimming or practicing yoga. The gym has been
doing good business, says a manager surnamed Zhou.
About 1,000 new gyms have been opening in China every year during the past
few years. With 30 new gyms and fitness clubs coming up every year, Beijing has
seen a boom in the fitness business. And then there are people who visit spas
for full-body or foot massage, or aromatherapy. These spas are run by hotel
chains, other organizations and even mom-and-pop establishments.
But despite all this, the modern idea of fitness remains an urban, middle-class craze. A
survey, conducted by a team of the Tianjin Institute of Physical Education, led by researcher
Shao Xuemei, shows the awareness and willingness of taking to sports and exercise
varies among people of different social strata.
Government officials, factory workers and professionals are the three groups most
frequently engaged in sports, according to the survey that covered more than 5,000
people in nine cities across the country.
Government officials usually take to sport because they are the most aware
of the benefits of physical fitness, says Shao. Factory workers engaged in sport
either as recreation or as a means to keep fit.
About 5 percent of the urban people - the relatively well-off, including
managers, and those working for commercial or tertiary industries - join health
clubs to keep fit, according to the survey. The proportion of those who pay to
exercise is the highest among private entrepreneurs group, with 11 percent of
them doing so. But they are the most inconsistent group when it comes to
workouts, too, because of their busy schedule.
Physical exercise, however, is not a form of recreation for urban residents
who just about manage to meet their needs, nor is it for farmers and migrant
workers in cities. "We always think doing household chores and farming is
working out. It's weird for us to think that a bit of additional exercise will
help with our fitness," says Fang Dayue, a man in his 40s in a village in Anhui
province. That is why fitness centers are a craze only in cities such as Beijing
and Shanghai.
Up to 70 percent of Beijing residents take part in sport, according to
official data, whereas the national figure is only 33 percent. Besides, a
majority of the middle-aged and old people exercise because they have been
advised by physicians to do so to fight chronic illnesses.
The initial results of the latest national physical fitness monitoring
project, released by the General Administration of Sport of China (GASC) in
2006, show that the traditional "water towns" of Shanghai and Jiangsu province
have more robust people than the country's tough northeast or the Inner Mongolia
autonomous region. The study is carried out every five years to track the
development of people's health and physical prowess in different regions.
According to the GASC, the municipal and provincial governments on the east
coast sponsor more advanced sports and fitness programs and thus the average
resident in that region are fitter. The difference, however, reveals unbalanced
distribution of sports resources in east and west, urban and rural areas, as
well as major and small cities.
"I want a place to loosen my muscles but there is simply no such place
here," says Huang Hongqing, a 54-year-old resident of Anqing, a small city in
Anhui. He used to play basketball with his son on the latter's school court. But
after his son passed out of school, Huang lost his playmate, so he stopped
playing altogether.
"Ever since 2001, when China made a successful bid for the 2008 Olympic
Games, people around me have become crazy about sports. But fields and courts
are too few to meet the needs of everyone in a small city as ours," Huang
Hongqing says. The sports facilities managed by subsidiaries of national or
local sports authorities and those run by schools, universities and government
and military institutions account for up to 88 percent of the total.
The public has limited or even no access to institutions run by schools,
universities, governments and the military. That has restricted them from making
more money, says Wang Jing, a researcher in sports with Northwest University of
Politics and Law.
To deal with the problem, the country is working on a national fitness plan
with funds both from the government and social sectors being used to build
public fitness centers in urban and rural areas alike.
According to a specific plan for rural areas, 3
billion yuan from central and local governments' budgets will be used to build
fitness centers in 100,000 or one-sixth of China's villages by 2010. About
87,000 villages have already completed their projects.
In economic terms, a sound national fitness program will help boost the
sports and fitness industry and contribute to national development. Right now,
the output of the sports industry accounts for only 0.56 percent of the
country's GDP, whereas the ratio is 1 to 3 percent in some European countries.
The figure is 4 percent in the US, which has the most advanced sports industry,
according to the GASC.
To ensure a healthy and balanced development of the sports market, Liu
Guoyong, deputy director of the GASC, says his administration has submitted a
long-term plan blueprinting the national fitness cause to the State Council. The
proposal is likely to be adopted soon.
Experts, including Liu, say the sports market is set to expand because the
Beijing Olympics has created fitness and sports awareness among a huge number of
people.
GASC figures show investment in sports and other recreational equipment
leaped 8.5 percent to 1.5 billion dollars in the first seven months of this year,
compared with the same period last year.
That should be music to the industry captains' ears, and an impetus to more
people to keep themselves fitter.
(Source: China Daily)
