WORLDWIDE SURVEY REVEALS FITNESS TRENDS FOR 2008

M ore than a year ago, the editors of ACSM’s Health & Fitness JournalA set out to survey the fitness industry. The 2007 survey (conducted in 2006) was an attempt to determine t r e n d s t h a t wou ld he lp health and fitness programming efforts that were then t h o u g h t t o become standards within the industry. The results of the s u r v e y an d comments by recognized experts in the field were published in ACSM’s Health & Fitness JournalA (1). The survey was repeated in 2007 with some surprising results. Respondents to the survey were asked to recognize the difference between a ‘‘fad’’ and a ‘‘trend’’ before they opened the survey instrument. The editors were interested in trends in the commercial, corporate, clinical, and community health and fitness industries and not passing fads that could be introduced into the market and then fade away as quickly as it appeared. As in the past, the following definitions were provided: 1. Fad. A fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period; a craze (http:// dictionary.reference.com). 2. Trend. A general development or change in a situation or in the way that people are behaving (http://dictionary.cambridge.org).