WORLDWIDE SURVEY OF FITNESS TRENDS FOR 2012

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Now in its sixth consecutive year, the 2012 ACSMWorldwide Survey of Fitness Trends embraced previous trends and also reinforced the deletion of what had seemed to be strong trends for 2 to 3 years but now have dropped off the list for the second year in a row relegating them to the growing bucket of fitness crazes, rages, and fads. Arguably, there are growing concerns about the still sluggish economy and how people choose to spend their hardearned income. The results of this annual survey will help the health and fitness industry make some very important investment decisions when planning for the future. Those business decisions should be based upon emerging trends and not the latest exercise innovation peddled by late night television infomercials or the hottest celebrity endorsing a product. As in the past five ACSM fitness trends surveys, respondents had to first make the important distinction between a ‘‘fad’’ and a ‘‘trend.’’ Many (if not all) surveys of this type rarely make a distinction, but because this is a survey of trends and not fads, it is important to define each. A trend has been described as ‘‘a general development or change in a situation or in the way that people are behaving’’ (http://dictionary.cambridge.org). It would be totally expected then to see the same trends appearing for multiple years in a ‘‘trends survey.’’ The definition of trend, after all, includes the phrase ‘‘general development’’ as opposed to ‘‘a fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period,’’ which is the definition of a fad (http://dictionary.reference.com). For the last 6 years, the editors of ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal have developed and widely disseminated electronic surveys to thousands of professionals to determine trends in the health and fitness industry that might help to guide programming efforts for 2012 and, perhaps, into the next decade. The first survey (1), conducted in 2006 (for predictions in 2007), was the initial effort to develop a systematic way to predict the future of the health and fitness industry, and surveys have been done each year since (2Y5). These annual surveys of health and fitness trends in the commercial (for-profit), clinical (including medical fitness), community (not-forprofit), and corporate sectors of the industry confirmed some trends revealed in previous surveys. Some of the trends first identified for 2007 have moved up and stayed in the top 10 since the original survey was published, whereas some new trends seem to be emerging for 2012, and others have disappeared out of the top 20. Future surveys will either confirm these new trends or fall short of making an impact on the health and fitness industry and drop out of the survey as did the stability ball, Pilates, and balance training in 2011; this was confirmed for 2012 as none of these appeared in the top 20. Dropping out of the survey may indicate that what was perceived to be a trend in the industry was actually a fad. Others