Gyms Are Bad For You?

by Zack Beauchamp

Ann Friedman makes the case. It's somewhat wanting:

Gyms are energy-sucking, disease-riddled, crowded, and often expensive. It's an industry that exists because people pay a lot of money for the privilege of not meeting their personal health goals. (People overestimate the amount they'll use their membership by as much as 70 percent.)

People may "overestimate" the amount they use their gym, but that doesn't mean they're more likely to exercise if they follow Friedman's advice to exercise outdoors. In my case, at least, a gym membership was a gateway drug of sorts out of an unhealthy college lifestyle and in to outdoor running/free weight lifting. The guilt created by shelling out a bunch of cash was a pretty strong motivator to at least try it out. In any event, when America's facing an obesity epidemic and a health care cost crisis, it seems pretty shortsighted to warn people away from a reasonably effective means of staying healthy.