The Gym: Exeter’s silent killer?

Gym bunnies, fitness freaks and protein pushers. They’re all a common figures at the university’s gym. However, Exeter Uni’s gym has another type of gym-goer: the anorexic/bulimic. These are people – mainly girls – who are deadly thin and shouldn’t be in the vicinity of any exercise machine.

Eating disorder sufferers use exercise as a way to burn off any meagre portions of food they’ve consumed and create a negative calorie deficit. These girls are doing irreversible damage to their bodies.

The problem? The gym does no initial health check-ups. So long as you hand over a bit of plastic, they don’t care. Like many aspects of the university, they take your money with both hands and then dispose of any duty of care to you. They don’t take a BMI, blood pressure or seem to have any basic health care standards. Ironic, considering the gym is supposed to be a place to be healthy.

Full-length mirrors and non-existent health checks do nothing to help vulnerable gymgoers.

Consequently, more and more girls are running their way to an early grave.The gym staff aren’t blind and they must see what I see, but they don’t care because their pockets are lined. As an ex-anorexic, I am appalled. When my BMI dropped to 17, my gym at home froze my membership. As my weight continued slipping, my membership was cancelled. Most gyms won’t let you join at all unless you have a BMI of 18.

Eating disorder sufferers are enslaved to the illness and will exercise beyond exhaustion if it means burning off calories. And the university gym is allowing this to happen and actually encouraging it with the full-length mirrors they have placed directly opposite the treadmill. Smart move, guys.

Is someone going to have to drop dead in order for them to do something about their disgusting, money-hungry attitude? They don’t monitor you once you’ve signed up and of course, if you do want some extra help, you have to pay even more money.

The negligence from the gym is sickening. Then again, why should we expect anything different? The university itself pays next to no attention to illnesses. I’ve lived in halls for two years and have been placed on the top floor, despite being an ex-anorexic. So the gym really isn’t going to do anything about the stick insects running themselves to death on treadmills.

As a result, the gym seems to typify Exeter. Greedy and hedonistic without any sense of reality. The reality is that this gym, with its lack of health checks on its clients, could be killing girls.