A recent study done on obesity in Saudi Arabia by the Ministry of Health, showed that 66 percent of women were either overweight or obese. The study also concluded that obesity was higher among women than among men in the Kingdom. Numerous attempts have been made to make society aware of this epidemic through seminars and TV talk shows. The number of obese women between the ages of 14 and 60 is on the rise. One of the solutions to the problem, as we all know, is maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and staying fit is one of the best ways of doing that.

With healthy nutrition and exercise, you can achieve the ultimate goal of being fit and staying fit. Most of us prefer working out in the open air because it has a positive impact on the human body both physically and emotionally.

In Saudi Arabia that works well when the weather is cool, but when summer comes, it brings with it two major problems. One is being unable to find the right open air environment for your daily exercise routine and the other is the weather. As a result most people, in an attempt to stay fit, tend to join a gym.

For women in the Kingdom that is not as easy as it sounds due to the small number of gyms for women, as compared to the number of gyms for men. And if a woman does find a gym and decides to join it, she is faced with another problem: the exorbitant fees she must pay compared to the reasonable fees male gyms charge their customers.

This brings me to my dear friend Dina. Dina started putting on weight and tried everything from eating right to walking around her neighborhood like so many of her friends and relatives who decided to lose a few extra kilos. So Dina put on her walking shoes and her abaya and started her daily routine. She found eating right was easy. Walking, however, was another story. She huffed and puffed with the rest of the people we see walking around either the Ikea furniture center on Tahlia street or the huge wall surrounding the girls’ college near Al-Falek roundabout. The first five minutes were fine, but then suddenly Dina started experiencing some dizziness due to the increase in the temperature these days.

However, she kept on walking, telling herself it would pass. But it did not. She could not take the heat, so she decided that she had no other option but to join a gym to lose the excess weight. Dina started looking for the right gym. She went from gym to gym looking for one that had a price she could afford. She also wanted a place that had the right equipment and good trainers. She was shocked to find that the prices were astronomical especially when compared to men’s gyms. When she finally did find a gym within her limited budget, it was rundown, shabby and had no trainers. Dina was frustrated and discouraged by what she found. You can find a gym for men on almost every street corner. The fees are reasonable and the gyms are usually well designed. Dina finally decided to forget about working out and told me: “What’s the use if I can’t find a place that will help me lose all this weight.”

After talking to my friend Dina, I wondered about the problem of obesity among women in Saudi Arabia. Stating facts and percentages is not enough to raise awareness about the issue. Why doesn’t the Ministry of Health try to find some solutions? Why isn’t physical education included in the curriculum of girls’ schools? Why doesn’t every community or district have its own reasonably priced gym for women? I believe that it is high time we start finding a solution for this problem. It’s about time public awareness posters were posted everywhere. It’s also about time gyms were required to lower their prices or at least standardize the prices they charge male and female customers.

Dina and others need to have a support system and that is one of the purposes of working out in a gym. They need to believe that our culture encourages a healthy lifestyle that includes working out. They need to believe that gyms are not something that is reserved for the privileged and rich.

Some people would simply suggest working out in one’s backyard, but how many people in our cities here have a backyard to work out in? Others would suggest working out at home, but I have found that if you do not have a group of people who encourage you or who are facing the same problem that you face, you will eventually relapse and not be able to reach your goal and maintain it. So, isn’t it about time that we educate women about the importance of exercise? After all, a fit body yields a healthy and creative mind. — Esraa Al-Ghamdi is a Saudi poet. She can be reached at
esraa.alghamdi@gmail.com