Join CURVES or become a 300 pound frito-eating orca?

Excuse my naivete, but what does your reproductive choice politics have to do with chosing a gym?

As an exercise physiologist, i'm happy to slam Curves on a number of levels. Still, the article in the SF Chronicle was long ago corrected, and the situation is not nearly as one sided as originally suggested. There are a couple of things to keep in mind before making a blanket condemnation of Curves.

First of all, they are franchises, and presumably not every franchise owner shares the opinion of the company's founder and CEO. In fact, the local Brooklyn franchises took out an ad pointing out exactly that. Any donations that are made come from the pockets of the CEO - not the company. More to the point, (as the SF Chronicle correction admitted) the organizations to which the CEO made his *private* donations are not "the most militant anti-abortion groups in the country" as the original article suggested. The largest of these donations went to "the Family Practice Center of McLennan County, which provides a variety of health-care services to Central Texas residents, many of whom are uninsured, according to the Curves spokeswoman. The Catholic-run center does not provide abortions but is not actively involved in the anti-abortion movement, the center's CEO said."

As a pro-choicer, I don't ask the abortion policy of the CEO of every business I patronize, nor do i think it's relevant what he/she does with his profits.

JC

Carnivore wrote: [quote=Anonymous]Excuse my naivete, but what does your reproductive choice politics have to do with chosing a gym?

Curves gives lots of money to anti-choice groups. Not everyone is willing to see their membership dues spent that way.

Here's an article about it in Salon:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/05/19/curves/index_np.html

Obviously that's your right, and I don't begrudge you that. I was simply pointing out that the original (and widely quoted) article was inaccurate and retracted, and that it's a slippery slope. Would you/should you not partonize McDonalds because Joan Kroc made the biggest donation ever to the Salvation Army? I don't know - and I don't totally disagree with you. Just pointing out the other side. Funny what direction a discussion of an Indian restaurant can take.

No disrespect to to your POV intended.

JC

Those of us who are concerned about where CEOs and members of the board spend their money, particularly on electoral politics, should check out www.buyblue.com. It's a fairly comprehensive -- and growing -- list of corporations providing goods and services. The site does research on whether the corporations or their staff donate to political campaigns, and what proportion is spent on Democratic candidates and what proportion is spent on (choke) Republicans. If you care about such things, and I hope you do, check it out. You may change your buying habits.

Follow the money.

iowagirl wrote: Those of us who are concerned about where CEOs and members of the board spend their money, particularly on electoral politics, should check out www.buyblue.com.
Follow the money.

it's www.buyblue.org

yep. a thread split...

I think it's totally relevant where the $$$ goes, and frankly with the number of options we have to find exercise in NYC there's no excuse for paying for Curves anti-choice support. Or Domino's Pizza.

Now did you hear the one about Rick Santorum getting $$$ from the owner of Urban Outfitters/Anthropologie? It was detailed in the Philadelphia Enquirer a while ago.

I have a Curves right across the street from my job. I went with a coworker to check it out and it was SOOOO lame.

Its 8-10 machines in a circle and you are supposed to go through the circle three times. In between each machine there is a mat where you do running in place, squats, etc. The machines are all based on resistance (no changing weights). I am in terrible shape and I blew through it. I don't know WHO can benefit from it. It was WAY too easy.

t-fal wrote: i ownder if the uo/anthropologie ceo donated to santorum in order to get his permission to license his name on a cheeky t-shirt that refers to that frothy mix of lube and fecal matter, otherwise known as santorum.

I'm so glad that term caught on. I thought it would be relegated to readers of Savage Love.

I've looked at BuyBlue before and find their methodology dubious. They basically just figure out what percentage of corporate and personal donations went to Democrats vs. Republicans. So, for example, Earthlink gets a really low score because one of their officers (the CFO, I think?) gave a bunch of his own money to Republicans. The company didn't give any money to politicians or PACs at all. Does this one guy's private actions make the company boycottable? I don't think so--but you wouldn't know that unless you look at BuyBlue's most detailed breakdown.

I think they are now claiming to be working on a "new methodology" that will take into account labor practices and stuff like that. That would be an improvement.

Also...let's give Philly a little credit...it's the Inquirer, not the Enquirer!

Not really in defense of Curves, but as a former member I'd like to weigh in, so to speak.

When I lived in Park Slope I joined the Curves on 9th Street, and it turned out to be the ONLY thing that has ever helped me lose weight. I'm a big girl and have a couple of medical conditions that make it pretty easy for me to gain, and I really didn't think I was going to lose anything. But I liked the idea of an all-female workout space and also liked being somewhere where there were other fat women working out. I've always felt way too self-conscious in a regular gym. I really just wanted to get some exercise and didn't expect anything, and I'll agree with the previous poster who said that it seems too easy -- it WAS pretty easy. But it was also pretty effective, and it was the only workout I've ever done where I didn't feel like people were staring at the fat girl in the gym. Circuit training is a really good option for people who aren't regular exercisers, because you don't do any single activity for long enough to get very tired before switching to something else.

Then I dropped several pounds the first month, which was a pleasant surprise. I started gradually changing my diet one thing at a time -- for instance, the first month I quit putting sugar in my coffee. I didn't go on any kind of radical or structured diet and I still allowed myself the occasional junk food or dessert but I just started eating generally more healthy foods.

Over a year of going to Curves, I lost almost 40 pounds. I wasn't crazy about the music they play for the workouts, and a couple of the staff members were a little too perky and in-your-face during the workouts and they weren't open on Sundays (probably because of the company owners, I assume), but I found that for the most part people left me alone, it wasn't too time-consuming, and they were open until 9 or 10 at night most nights so I was able to fit it into my schedule pretty easily. It was also pretty cheap -- I think I was paying $50 or $60 a month and you could go as often as you liked. They recommend three workouts a week and I found I was able to do that most weeks.

But then I moved to Atlantic Avenue and transferred my membership to the Curves on Flatbush, and when I went there I found it to be much less friendly. There was just a really weird vibe about the place -- the staff acted weirdly suspicious of the newcomer and I just felt uncomfortable there. They also were open much shorter hours than the one in Park Slope and I had a hard time getting there as regulary as I had before. I learned about the owners of the company and started feeling really conflicted about giving my money to them, and I finally ended up canceling my membership. There was some other stuff going on too; my mom died last year and I was pretty depressed and I stopped caring as much about what I was eating. Between that and not working out regularly, over the past year and a half I've gained most of the old weight back.

A few months ago I discovered a similar circuit training setup at the YWCA on Atlantic and 3rd and I signed up, but the circuit training room was mainly open during the day (they were open a tiny bit later two weekdays and they were open Saturday mornings, and that was it, so it was hard to get in there very often). And now the YWCA is closing its entire gym in September. I'd love to find someplace in the neighborhood where I could get some sort of circuit training workout and have expanded hours available to me, but I don't know of any places around here that offer anything like what I'm looking for.

Anyway, I just felt I should counter the people who have been expressing doubts that the workout Curves offers can make any difference; I found it to be VERY effective. I just couldn't continue supporting the company anymore, especially given the atmosphere at the Flatbush location.