Until recently, actually, there have been little data available to confirm or reject that hypothesis. If there were such evidence to support this theory, we would all have certainly heard about it. Imagine the publicity that would result if a study in a respected peer-reviewed medical journal concluded that living near the pollution of industrial plants did cause adverse birth outcomes such as low birth weight or stillbirths. The headlines would be high pitched and strident. They would say something like, “Corporate pollution threatens the lives of unborn children.”

Despite the conventional wisdom, there has not been a study that has found such harmful results. On Sept. 8 though, the respected international journal The Lancet did publish a study on the effects of industrial pollution on birth outcomes. The authors of the study concluded, “we found no evidence to support the hypothesis that living close to major industrial sites led to adverse birth outcomes.” Apparently, because the study was “good news” and did not support the widespread existing theory, the media has all but ignored it.

In this study, University of Edinburgh Professor R.S. Bhopal and his colleagues reported on birth abnormalities, birth weight, stillbirths and other indices of birth outcome among women living at varying distances from major steel and petrochemical companies in England. They concluded that the highest frequency of adverse birth outcomes occurred, ironically, in the residential areas that were farthest from industrial sites.

While this latest research is just one study, and should not be taken to be conclusory, numerous other studies have not shown no contrary evidence. But what we may learn from this study is that the mere proximity to an industrial site does not necessarily give rise to detrimental effects on birth outcomes.

Is good news not worthy of coverage? Are the results of studies that challenge the popular wisdom simply not newsworthy? Is the press generally “bad news-driven?” The bottom line here, at least with regard to pregnancy, birth and living near chemical plants is, as political analyst Ben Wattenberg stated in the title of a recent book, that “the good news is the bad news is wrong.”

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Just remember that these games won’t appeal to everyone, and will probably attract those people who tend to be social or who feel confident that they have a shot at winning. Nonetheless, increasing the exercise adherence of 50 out of 100 members is better than none at all. Just don’t forget those other 50!

The challenge to health and fitness centers is to ultimately change the member so health and fitness is an inherent desire, and not simply a means to obtain some sort of reward in a game. This may take several months or many years to develop, but in the end, you will have members coming to exercise because they enjoy coming, not because they need a reason to come.

Also, changes in the mindset of your members is an ongoing process that needs a lot of support, not only by you as their fitness expert, but from their families and co-workers, as well.

You must not simply offer an incentive program and expect the people to follow it and ultimately change. They will need a lot of encouragement during the program, and especially in between programs.

It is up to you to know what sort of changes they wish to make, and to steer them in the direction of least resistance. Sometimes it may be competitive programs, other times it may be something more personalized. Regardless, the rewards for your organization will be consistent, and healthier members who can benefit society by being more productive and happier at work and at home.

The U.S. debt markets toughened, so less leverage was available. During 2011, no earthshaking news occurred for the larger club companies. None went public. None were sold either to a strategic partner (hotel, resort, medical or sporting goods company) or to a large financial company. No new private equity players entered the industry, as many were waiting for the debt markets to improve. The two existing U.S. public companies (Bally Total Fitness and Sports Club Company) were considered confusing and unimpressive as club role models by Wall Street. No real industry consolidation took place, despite the talk of the last two to three years; no real buyers appeared.

The United Kingdom was no longer the great panacea for public market companies. Price-earning multiples fell, and several of the major companies returned to private status. That may also be a path for U.S. companies. In 2011, there were several manufacturers that were sold.

On the non-profit side, fewer new hospital-based wellness centers were built; this was probably a function of many hospitals experiencing more difficult economics of their core business. Non-profit issues are still being contested, but less so with public parks and recreation centers, and more so with YMCAs.

Diet centers continue to gain market share — with weight-loss products — and they represent an industry about three times the size of the fitness industry. Yet, it still has not developed a proven long-termsuccess model for its customers.

Unless the debt markets improve and at least one major club company is sold or goes public, 2003 may follow the profile of 2011. No major improvement is projected for the economy, so this year may continue the patterns of the last two.

For about 10 minutes in the mid-’90s, browser functionality was so limited it really was true that no one could tell how big your business was on the Web. It didn’t matter if you were a Fortune 500 behemoth or a one-man, kitchen-table startup-if you were using David Siegel’s single-pixel GIF trick to transcend the formatting limitations of early HTML and a Perl script to process your customer feedback, you were state-of-the-art to your ecommerce customer.

Then things got complicated. Sponsorships and banner ads began to replace Justin Hall’s Links from the Underground as the primary means of driving traffic, Netscape Communications introduced Secure Sockets Layers in the fall of 1995, and suddenly the Web’s much-vaunted “level playing field” tilted substantially toward those who could afford to hire a squadron of professional Web developers.

Today, top-flight sites can easily cost $1 million to develop, with the 100 leading ecommerce sites spending an average of $8.6 million a year on marketing. The little guys sit around wondering how long it will be until Jeff Bezos turns them into another notch on his desk. To allay their fears-or at least make a quick buck off them-Yahoo!, AT&T, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, MindSpring, and many others have begun to offer (or will soon be offering) low-cost hosting services and browser-based authoring tools that allow small businesses to point and click their way to a full-fledged ecommerce site.

While such programs can easily run upwards of $300 a month, a new group of players is trying to drive prices down to a level with which Internet consumers feel more comfortable: namely, free. A startup based in Emeryville, Calif., freemerchant.com, pioneered the trend in December 1998. According to freemerchant.com’s CEO, Serge Wilson, the company grew out of his previous business, a systems integration house that started doing more and more Internet-related work in the early ’90s. “After the third ecommerce store we built, we said, ‘Let’s not keep making doughnuts, let’s make a doughnut machine,’” Wilson explains. But after creating DataBass, a set of commerce templates designed for music stores, Wilson found that the small businesses he was targeting were interested in the product but reluctant to pay for it. “It didn’t matter how low you made the price, people would not pull the trigger,” he says. “Even at $29 a month, it was still a huge barrier to small business, especially since the Internet was such a great unknown to them.”

The solution? Wilson founded a new company, de-verticalized his product, and started giving it away. Following suit, San Francisco startup Bigstep.com launched its free-commerce site in July. Flowing from the Silicon Valley jungle of Los Gatos, Calif., eCongo.com plans to go live with its free-commerce site in late September. Bigstep.com was founded by NetObjects alum Andrew Beebe with $12 million in funding from U.S. Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, Partech International, Draper Richards, and several other venture capitalists. eCongo.com is the product of CEO Rick Asturias and CTO Eugene Engelgau, both of whom also founded the Web application service provider SuperBusiness NET.

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If you’re thinking to scoff at HealthLink’s Prospect Packets, anticipating that potential members would simply use the information to bargain a lower-priced membership elsewhere, think again. As North explains, since the packet’s implementation in January 2002, “Our club visits after a phone inquiry are up 182 percent from 34 percent the previous year. Membership sales are up 137 percent over the same period last year.” These numbers are even more impressive when you learn that HealthLink provides their packets to people who haven’t even set foot inside the facility. But this is all part of the game plan. As North explains, “The packets allow us to capture lead contact information from phone inquiries, and to facilitate a visit to the facility.”

Packets are offered to both walk-in prospects as well as callers, and 98 percent of callers provide a mailing address to receive the packet, “which is entered into our prospect database for tracking and additional follow up,” explains North.

North describes the packets in the following way: “The Prospect Packet is a white folder with the Baptist Health System logo on the cover. Inside the left-hand pocket, you find a stairstep-style series of inserts with headings for ‘Member Testimonials,’ ‘Membership Pricing,’ ‘Fitness Programs,’ ‘Club Features’ and ‘How to Contact Us.’ The right-hand pocket has a one-week guest pass, a letter from the director with the mission statement, a copy of the current newsletter and the [group exercise] schedule.”

In addition to sales numbers, North says that surveys of members show that the packet is quite often “the difference between joining our facility and joining another where they felt pressure to join and resistance to provide membership pricing information.” Another benefit has been a “significant database of addresses [for] marketing additional events, like health fairs, screenings, lectures, etc.,” says North.

North is aware of how distinct this seemingly simple innovation makes his facility, saying that “we are unaware of any other club that provides this type of product for potential members. Several clubs in our local market (including a national chain) will not even write their current membership pricing down on a piece of paper for a prospective client.” When you think about the message this sends to a potential member, HealthLink’s sales numbers start to make perfect sense. North concludes, “The prospect packet sets us apart from the competition where membership pricing options are often guarded secrets.” HealthLink’s members have expressed their agreement with their membership dollars.

TouchFit allows members to use touch-screen technology to quickly enter training information. Pre-set programs and incentive programs allow users to track training schedules for particular events, or work toward mileage goals, such as a cross-country run from Florida to Alaska. Member’s progress is graphically displayed on the computer screen, along with their exercise history. There is even a TouchFit Vegas game similar to a slot machine to encourage use of the system. Winners get an energy bar, bottled water or other fitness-oriented prize.

Individuals are entered into the system when they sign up for membership. After a health screening and an orientation, members can use a pre-set program, design one of their own or have a trainer map out a personalized strategy. The system includes information on exercise selection, intensity and duration.

Every piece of equipment is in the system by manufacturer name, and members can input their training data at the three onsite terminals during or after their workouts, or at their convenience via The Sports Barn Web site. Privacy is ensured with a password and barcode system.

Members see this innovation as very time-efficient and customer-friendly. In addition, they have found that the TouchFit system increases their motivation and data retention, leading to more goal achievement over time. As the only club in Chattanooga with this innovative technology, The Sports Barn has gained the reputation as a high-tech fitness facility. This has allowed the club to differentiate itself from its competitors, which has increased membership sales and brought a welcome boost to the club’s profitability.

Researchers led by Jan L. Shifren, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital, hypothesized that symptoms of sexual dysfunction, such as a lack of sexual interest, reported by premenopausal women who underwent oophorectomy, might be reversed with testosterone replacement. They found that administration of testosterone in these women did improve their sexual function and psychological well-being.

The ovaries’ estrogen production drops dramatically when a woman enters menopause. The drop in testosterone production is not as great. However, if the ovaries are removed prior to menopause — called surgical menopause — there is a much greater reduction in testosterone levels than for a woman who has gone through natural menopause.

In the recent study, researchers studied 75 healthy women, aged 31 to 56, at different sites in the United States. The women had undergone oophroectomies before natural menopause and had below-normal blood levels of testosterone. All subjects had received daily doses of estrogen for at least two months and were in stable heterosexual relationships.

Before enrollment, the women completed the Brief Index of Sexual Functioning for Women. This multiple-choice questionnaire was used to assess aspects of the subjects’ sexuality, such as relationship satisfaction, frequency of sexual activity, and sexual desire. To qualify for the study, women had to have a score of less than normal.

Each subject received a different regimen of testosterone skin patches for 12 weeks at a time. The combinations included: two placebo patches (no testosterone); one placebo and one testosterone patch (150 micrograms per day); and two testosterone patches (300 micrograms per day). Blood levels of testosterone were measured at baseline and at weeks four, eight and 12 of each treatment period. Additionally, the sexuality questionnaire was repeated at week 12 of each treatment period and subjects’ moods were assessed with the Psychological General Well-Being Index questionnaire.

The results showed that the testosterone blood levels were low to low-normal during placebo treatment, increased to mid-normal levels with the 150-microgram patch, and exceeded normal ranges with the 300-microgram patch. The higher testosterone dosage resulted in further boosts in scores from the Brief Index of Sexual Functioning. Other findings were that hair growth and acne did not change significantly for women during treatment.

The authors noted that just being in the study might have influenced the subjects’ behavior. For instance, study participation alone might have facilitated communication between couples, or the visible skin patch might have served as a stimulus to increase their sexual activity.

There are still unanswered questions concerning the clinical use of the testosterone patch in women with impaired sexual function. In an accompanying editorial, Drs. David Guzick and Kathleen Hoeger of the University of Rochester Medical Center note that the long-term daily use of 300 micrograms of testosterone, which produced a higher-than-normal blood level of testosterone, might have side effects. Further, the study did not include women who were taking antidepressant drugs, possibly due to their sexual dysfunction, but which might have significant drug interactions with the administration of testosterone.

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Like many successful incentive programs, The Wellness Express was structured around a fun theme, in this case a train trip, in which participants received a stamp in their rail pass each week they completed three workouts at the fitness center. To encourage motivation, participants were assigned a partner, with less dedicated exercisers being paired with more active members. For each stamp a team received in its rail pass, members were entered into a drawing that featured several prizes. If a team received stamps all four weeks of the program, team members received two additional entries into the drawing. Participants could also obtain an additional entry by attending an educational seminar.

The drawing included massage gift certificates, nutritional counseling, travel gift baskets, hotel accommodations, travel backpacks, cameras and more. Each participant also received a Wellness Express T-shirt with the Surgeon General’s warning about lack of exercise incorporated into the design.

To aid in future marketing efforts, a pre- and post-test survey were administered to participants to identify the different stages of physical activity readiness and to determine any shifts of readiness throughout the program.

The Wellness Express was successful because it emphasized participating in all types of activities and promoted the ease of doing so on a regular basis, says program director Richard Little. “It motivated the deconditioned population as well as the conditioned to participate, and allowed a larger majority to be successful,” Little says. “Members enjoyed the idea that they did not have to be the fastest, strongest or most conditioned in order to be successful and have a chance at winning the incentives.”

We see Jake start to struggle. Brian seems OK. Jake blows water out. Brian’s hair floats. Jake moves – more water shoots out. Brian sings 80s hits to himself. Jake struggles even more, fights a bit, then rushes out of the water with a gasp.

“Chewie Gum wins immunity!”

Make yourself at home

The next scene opens with the boat almost floating away with the rising tide. I don’t like to insult people. Sure, I make fun of people. Sometimes I point out things they do which make them look bad. But I don’t just outright insult people for the sake of insulting people. This is just not me.

But now, I can’t help it. These people are idiots. First, they had Special Forces guys come in, spend 24 hours, teach them an immense amount of survival skills (how to find food, improve their shelter, build traps, etc. etc. etc.), only for them to basically ignore everything they were shown and complain about their lack of food just a day or two later. Then, they lost their boat causing them to swim over a mile each way just to get water. The reason they lost their boat was because they didn’t tie the thing down far enough away from shore. And now, yet again, they have totally ignored the lesson they should’ve learned from losing their boat.

In other words, people who refuse to listen to those who help and people who don’t learn from their mistakes – suck.

In addition to their boat starting to float away, the monkey is ripping off the top of their food containers, digging in to the bananas, pretty much having his way with all the food in their camp. As everyone returns from the challenge, the chicken looks on and tries, more forcefully this time, to psychically communicate with everyone, “Eat the monkey! Eat the damn monkey!”

Erin poses a startling question, “Is there any reason why the lid is off our noodles?” The others comb through their stuff and Ken says that all the bananas they’d saved for the night are gone. Helen explains that with Monkeyclaws taking all their food, they will have to end up eating rocks. The monkey says, “You idiots.

Even I learned things from the Special Forces guys. One of these things I learned was how to steal food from idiots who do nothing to keep me out of their food. And when your food runs out, at least I will remember all the stuff they showed could be eaten.”

The chicken screams, “Monkey tastes just like chicken! I’m serious!”

It’s no wonder. There are announcements almost every day by major organizations regarding their foray into the world of on-line sales. We hear endlessly about the success of companies such as Amazon.com and Dell Computer, with their millions of dollars in daily transactions.

Some of us have stuck a toe in the water, placing an order form on our Web site that people can send via E-mail to purchase a product. We then proceed to handle the order manually, all the time secretly longing for the ability to implement a system that will handle real-time credit card authentication, shipping charges, tax calculations and all the other accoutrements of a sophisticated Web store.

What has held us back is the complexity of such a project. There is no doubt that the cost to establish an on-line store has been prohibitive for many small businesses. In most cases, you need an expensive, high-end computer server, a full-time, direct connection to the Internet and a sophisticated catalogue program. Once you pull all that together, you’ll likely need expert implementation assistance, not to mention a degree in rocket science in order to put in place real-time credit card processing. It’s enough to send any entrepreneur running for cover.

Welcome to the revolution — we’re now seeing the emerging of what the Internet industry is coming to call “e-commerce service providers” that make it extremely easy for a small business to create an on-line store in minutes.

Take the IBM Home Page Creator for e-commerce service, for example. Sign up for the “bronze” service for a monthly fee of $89.95, and you’ll get just what you need to create your own Web site with real-time credit card authentication, multiple shipping rates, product descriptions and images. I’ve used the service to establish an on-line store to sell several of my books. Established by the small-business division of International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y., the service incorporates taxation specifics for several countries, including Canada.

There are many other services such as this one beginning to appear. Two other service providers that, unlike many of their U.S. counterparts, pay close attention to Canadian tax issues are Vancouver-based SunCommerceCorp. and DXShop, owned and managed by DXStorm Inc. of Oakville, Ont. Both will let you go in and create an on-line store in a matter of minutes, try the store out for 15 days, and then sign up for a fee that starts at about $100 a month if you are convinced of the potential.

Can you sell stuff on the Internet? I remember the day that I was bouncing around the office when a $150 order came in. Having said that, I’ll also admit that my own venture into on-line sales is in a deficit position right now, but I’m willing to make the investment.

The biggest problem may be getting your merchant credit card accounts set up. There seem to be far too many credit card representatives who shudder as soon as they hear the word Internet. In one case, it took me almost three months to get an account.

Although this technology makes it easy to build an on-line store, that doesn’t mean you should rush right out and do it. Before taking the plunge, you should carefully weigh the annual cost of at least $1,200 against the potential for sales. Second, you should seriously consider whether your product is the type that actually sells on-line. Third, you’ve got to be in this for the long haul — don’t expect short-term magic.

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