Laws needed to regulate fitness centres
I refer to the article by Raymond Yeung (“The dark side of Hong Kong’s fitness industry”, May 22).
It is good for people to try and lead healthy lifestyles and many of us are becoming more aware of how important this is (especially office workers) and we go to yoga, boxing and dancing classes run by fitness centres.
There has been strong criticism of the alleged tactics of California Fitness and I think these gyms put personal fitness trainers under a lot of pressure. They resort to different kinds of methods to get customers to sign up for more classes and personal training sessions.
These problems have become more common in Hong Kong and action must be taken to deal with them.
The government should introduce legislation which outlaws certain practices by gyms and offer sufficient protection to customers. The regulations must be clear and enforceable.
It also needs to implement an advertising campaign to raise awareness so that people do not sign contracts that end up costing them a lot of money.
