Planet fitness madness

As IB exams and SOL’s come to an end, summer quickly approaches–and so do summer plans! Speak­ing of the upcom­ing sunny season, Planet Fitness, one of the nation’s lead­ing gyms, intro­duced their very own High School Summer Pass, which allows for students through the ages of 14–19 to use all gym equip­ment for FREE! Regis­tra­tion begins May 19, and the pass is open to use at all Planet Fitness loca­tions start­ing June 1^st, ending Aug 31^st. 

Students across the US have access to all 2,500+ loca­tions of Planet fitness at absolutely no cost. Is this all just an act of promo­tion or is there some­thing else behind it? 

Chris Rondeau, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer at Planet fitness says, “Research shows that teens are strug­gling with over­all well­ness, and this is one of the many reasons why the High School Summer Pass program is so important.

Having joined the gym for the first time when I was 16, I know first­hand the bene­fits exer­cise has had on my life, so we look forward to help­ing teens create life­long habits in the Judge­ment Free Zone this summer.”

The fran­chise hopes students will take advan­tage of this oppor­tu­nity and use it as a cata­lyst to begin their jour­ney towards fitness, espe­cially in consid­er­a­tion of the era we live in today. A study showed that 1 in 3 youth in the US strug­gle with obesity or being over­weight. Planet fitness aims to contribute to the solu­tion of this ongo­ing nation­wide crisis by encour­ag­ing teens to take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­nity they’ve been given to change their lives for the better and bring friends along­side them.

Accord­ing to a source, Planet fitness has invested over $200 million in waived member­ship dues to promote youth health and wellness.

Social media commen­ta­tors, on the other hand, call the gym company’s grand gesture a “disas­ter,” “over­crowded,” and over­all “chaotic.” Reddit users comment on the contro­versy of the situ­a­tion, some agree­ing with the latter descrip­tions and others adding on by empha­siz­ing the calm atmos­phere being replaced with “disrup­tive.”

Justice High School students plan on taking advan­tage of the summer pass this year. Seham Seid, a rising 9^th grader who will be join­ing the wolf­pack this fall plans on kick­ing off her high­school career to a produc­tive start. “I’ve never worked out before, so this will be a really inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence.” When asked what she was most excited about, she said, “I’m excited about getting to meet other high­school­ers along the way–it’ll defi­nitely warm me up to begin­ning high­school since I’ve been really nervous about the whole thing.”

Gym rat or not, regis­ter on May 19 to gain access to Planet fitness’s exclu­sive summer pass! You’ve got noth­ing to lose except…well, some calo­ries! The present is always the best time to pick up on new, bene­fi­cial habits that will follow you well into your early adult­hood and hope­fully beyond.