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Women's Weight Loss and Fitness: Will This Booming Market Suffer from Success?

The Franchise Update Media Group, 2/7/08

Abstract:

Even 10,000-unit gorillas have an Achilles' heel. For Curves, the number one women's fitness and weight loss franchise, its own success is now biting at the ankle. Competitors of all sizes and shapes have sprung up. offering women an ever-increasing array of options for losing weight and staying fit.

Yet, despite increasing competition — from Contour Express, Liberty Fitness & Weight Loss, Jazzercise, Jenny Craig, StrollerFit, to name a few, the fitness pie, nearly $50 billion annually, is large enough to accommodate plenty of newcomers...

...The primary demographic for most of these brands is women aged 30 to 55. For decades, this has been the baby boomers, but they are aging out of this group. However, help is on the way. The up-and-coming Millennials, born 1980 to 2000 and whose ranks (73 million) exceed those of the baby boom generation, are filling to gap as boomers become seniors. Millennials, currently age 8 to 28, provide a customer base that will continue to swell in the coming decades...

...In 2008, with a large customer base, an overweight nation obsessed with being slim and trim, a coming generation eager to stay fit, and an older generation determined to stay active, the only real obstacle to success for the growing number of women's weight loss and fitness franchise brands is one another.

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