Best-seller author John Gray to headline Club Industry's 20th anniversary convention
by Patricia Amend
How do men and women differ?
It's a question that humanity has been debating since Adam and Eve.
How do they differ with respect to exercise and diet? And what do those difference suggest about such things as effective club design, equipment selection, program offerings, customer service, membership marketing and sales, etc.?
These are questions that health club owners and managers have been considering for at least 50 years . . . although the inquiry may well seem to have been going on ad infinitum.
Fortunately, John Gray, a world-renowned "relationship" expert and author of the breakthrough bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, not only has some opinions on the subject. Gray has answers-which he'll share, next month, with attendees at the Conference for Health and Fitness Facility Management, Club Industry 20th anniversary show, in Chicago.
The conference will take place November 2-5 at McCormick Place, with Gray providing the keynote address on November 3 at 11:30 a.m.
Gray, who has a doctorate in psychology and human sexuality and is a certified family therapist, has won acclaim for his success at helping men and women understand, respect, and appreciate one another. He's shared his wisdom with the public primarily via his 15 best-selling books, the most famous of which is Mars/Venus; since it was first published in 1992, more than 30 million copies have been sold in 40 different languages.
Now, none too soon for club professionals, he's turned his attention to several topics close to their own heart in his latest book, The Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution: Create the Brain Chemistry of Health, Happiness, and Lasting Romance. In it, he sets forth his ideas about how diet, exercise, and communication skills interact to affect the production of healthy brain chemicals and how that process differs among men and women.
Why this particular book right now? Because, when Gray surveyed the world around him, the time seemed right.
"Statistically," he points out, "one out of every five women, and one out of every 50 men, are now taking antidepressants. Conversely, one out of every five boys, and one out of every 50 girls, are now taking a drug for attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)...When I spotted those differences, I began to wonder, Why?"
Gray's research led him to suspect that diet and exercise have a significant impact on the proper "balance" of brain chemicals; that the system is gender-specific; and that a person's communication abilities can either minimize, or amplify, the resulting effects. "Men's and women's brains are different, and they cope with stress differently," he observes. "After a while, I began to understand why so many men were showing symptoms of ADD or ADHD. And I recognized that, for many women, exercise plays an important role in dealing with depression."
Gray's goal, in writing his new book, was to identify the rights types of food and exercise to achieve a healthy brain-chemical equilibrium.
"If, for instance, men exercise too much," he explains, "their dopamine and testosterone levels will drop because testosterone is needed to rebuild muscle; reduced testosterone levels, in turn, may affect their personal relationships. On the other hand, if women exercise too much, it can sometimes cause infertility.
"It's all about balance-getting the right amount of the right food and exercise," he stresses. "We have to acknowledge that diet and exercise affect men and women differently, and that there are good and bad regimens not only for each sex, but for different individuals as well.
Men, typically, require a diet that's higher in protein, or else they'll run out of dopamine; women need certain types of fat, or they won't have adequate amounts of serotonin...
"People need to be educated about the ways in which food and physical activity shape brain chemistry."
Gray's personal life testifies to his convictions about balance. His own workout-conducted with a trainer at home or his club-is a 45-minute assortment of "slow-burn exercises" that, he says, work seven muscle groups and stimulate his brain chemistry, cerebral spinal fluid, and hormones.
Beyond taking Mars/Venus brain-chemistry deviations into account in their counseling and programming, club professionals can do a better job of catering to the particularities of both genders in a variety of ways, suggests Gray. Social/sexual behaviors, spa services, even food can be capitalized on to make clubs more appealing.
“Many men-let's be honest-go to gyms, in part, to look at women," he for-instances. "Many women, conversely, aren't thrilled to have a bunch of guys staring at them while they're working out...which explains the need for, and growing popularity of, women-only areas in clubs and women-only fitness facilities." At the same time, he points out, coed facilities should provide areas where the two sexes can interact comfortably.
"Generally speaking," Gray adds, "there doesn't seem to be as compelling a need for men-only clubs."
Natural foods are booming in supermarkets, he observes, and clubs can promote their members' dietary balance by offering juices, raw organic foods, natural nutritional supplements, etc. "The multipurpose club of the future," he suggests, "will be part-gym, part-café-and-health-food store, and part spa." And, yes, even the spa has Mars/Venus implications and payoffs. "Everyone is overstressed today, and spa treatments can help us cope effectively," attests Gray. "Massage can produce oxytocin in women, which reduces stress, while increasing testosterone levels in men." Both conditions, he notes, can lead to closer and more rewarding male/female relationships.
Patricia Amend is a contributing editor for CBI and can be reached at Pamend@aol.com.
