{"id":1261,"date":"2015-01-27T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2015-01-27T02:05:04","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T09:05:04","slug":"new-years-resolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2015\/01\/27\/new-years-resolutions\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year Resolutions?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a solid\u00a026 days since the beginning of the new year, and I would bet that most resolutions&#8211;especially fitness resolutions&#8211;have fallen flat by now. Well, it turns out that maybe fitness resolution-makers shouldn&#8217;t carry the full burden of blame for their failings. In some ways, the system is stacked against them. NPR&#8217;s Planet Money scrutinized\u00a0the business model of typical gym<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/money\/2014\/12\/30\/373996649\/why-we-sign-up-for-gym-memberships-but-don-t-go-to-the-gym\"> in a recent podcast episode<\/a>. A brief summary of their observations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s not in the interest of gyms&#8217; financial interest to have frequently-attending members. More use means more cost (replacing machines, cleaning up, providing paper towels for de-sweatifying things), but not more revenue. Revenue is generated by monthly membership fees, which with a good marketing strategy, can be collected mostly independently of attendance.<\/li>\n<li>Many gyms plan on non-attendance; they have a much higher membership than their facilities could handle if that membership were to attend regularly.<\/li>\n<li>The monthly membership cost\u00a0an &#8220;elite&#8221; gym in New York City (where members must attend regularly or their membership is dropped) provides a glimpse of a\u00a0gym economy sans nonattendance; a monthly membership there runs in the high\u00a0hundreds of dollars. Planet Money argues that, in a perverse way, the majority of non-attending gym members subsidize the gym system for the minority of attending members at most gyms. If everyone made use of the gym, facility and maintenance costs would skyrocket.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Definitely an interesting listen, especially at this time of the year when the New Year chatter is starting to die down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a solid\u00a026 days since the beginning of the new year, and I would bet that most resolutions&#8211;especially fitness resolutions&#8211;have fallen flat by now. Well, it turns out that maybe fitness resolution-makers shouldn&#8217;t carry the full burden of blame for their failings. In some ways, the system is stacked against them. NPR&#8217;s Planet Money scrutinized\u00a0the business model of typical gym in a recent podcast episode. A brief summary of their observations: It&#8217;s not in the interest of gyms&#8217; financial interest to have frequently-attending members. More use means more cost (replacing machines, cleaning up, providing paper towels for de-sweatifying things), <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2015\/01\/27\/new-years-resolutions\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  New Year Resolutions?<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1263,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1261\/revisions\/1263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}