How Maureen Wallace and her ‘just for kids’ club concept are networking with other kid-friendly professionals in the community to make a difference in the lives of children and fight the obesity rates that have increasingly plagued our youngest generation.
Maureen Wallace decided to get involved with kids’ fitness when she realized her own daughter needed to lose some weight, and tried to find a facility that specialized in children’s fitness. When she couldn’t find one in the area, Maureen recognized the huge need for specialized kids’ fitness programs. As a lifelong fitness enthusiast and recently certified personal trainer, she decided to open her own club, called Growing Healthy: Where Fitness is Fun!
According to Wallace, kids’ fitness programming differs from adult fitness requirements in many areas. Kids have unique needs based on their physical size, emotional development, attention span and ability to interact and cope with peers and peer pressure. “Effective kids’ fitness programming recognizes that each child is unique and addresses their needs in an environment that is tailored to their situation,” she says, “One-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter programs don’t work with kids, especially if you want to attract and retain them as clients for multiple sessions.” She says children require near constant stimulation and structured sessions, and that actively involving parents is essential to make positive changes in a child’s level of fitness and nutrition.
Since the children’s fitness industry is relatively new, Wallace says finding resources to help build and promote a children’s fitness club is challenging. For this reason, she has founded the Youth Fitness and Nutrition Association (www.yfana.org) to be a destination for fitness professionals and owners of children’s gyms to build our businesses, develop best practices and discuss liability issues.
Marketing her services can also be a challenge, and requires both traditional marketing approaches and a concentrated educational effort to doctors, school nurses and other health professionals to increase their awareness of Growing Healthy’s services and to empower them to address the challenges of childhood obesity they witness every day. Recent approval of Wallace’s program by a major insurance carrier has also helped to validate her approach and has raised the club’s visibility to health professionals, who play a key role in referring clients.
Growing Healthy primarily offers programs for overweight children ages 6 to 8. These programs are tailored to each child’s specific needs, age, fitness level and medical considerations. The club also offers sports and conditioning programs for young athletes ages 8 to 12, with a focus on flexibility, increased coordination, endurance and healthy eating for sports performance. Also, the facilities’ Come Over and Play program gives kids a chance to use the strength training equipment and interactive games, as well as to participate in small group games with an emphasis on FUN!
While kids’ fitness might not yet have swept across the country as the next big thing, there’s no doubt that childhood obesity is a grave challenge. Luckily it’s one that Maureen Wallace seems to be more than capable of taking on!
To learn more about growing healthy: where fitness is fun! go to www.growinghealthynow.com
