A separate gym for women has attracted more women

 

Badria Yulia built Turkey's largest gym for women, which has numerous branches. The staff of this gym are only women, the owner and customers are also only women. So, is the separate women's gym proving helpful for women?

A poster outside the B-Fit gym in Imraniya area of ​​Istanbul, Turkey read 'Join the gym, get healthy and be happy'.

A handwritten text on the door says entry to men is prohibited.

It is one of 220 B-Fit centers in Turkey. This gym has the most branches in Turkey and has about 650,000 members. Yuliya realized that most of the billiards clubs, football clubs and bodybuilding gyms in Turkey are all for men only. He spoke to hundreds of women and found that only three things stop them from exercising: lack of time, lack of money, and lack of places to go.

Yulia developed a model that overcomes all three barriers. They kept gym fees very low or affordable, set a thirty-minute workout routine and opened a branch in every neighborhood.

Most of the female members of this gym have never done any exercise before and over the years the members of this gym have lost a total of 600,000 kg.

Badria Yulia started this gym in 2006 after visiting a women's gym in America. He said that he liked the gym in America and felt that there is a dire need for such a gym in Turkey.

At first, people told her that 'it won't work here', they said it's not possible because women don't work in Turkey, but Yuliya says I see it as an opportunity. was

It franchises gyms and also has only women on staff, which is significant because Turkey is a country where only 34 percent of the workforce are women.

Nilufer Narli, a sociologist at a university in Turkey, says that many women in Turkey live a lonely life.

They say that they spend most of their time in front of the TV and they don't go out. But they need to do something. Sports is very important for health and during this time socializing with other people is also important.

In this gym, women can wear whatever they want and work out however they want.

In Turkey, women are still bound by religion and traditions, where their husbands, fathers or brothers tell them what is right and what is wrong for them. And many women do not have the resources to participate in sports or other activities.

Obesity is becoming a major problem in Turkey, according to a recent report by the Ministry of Health, obesity is twice as common in women as in men.

Yulia wants to reach out to as many women as possible, so she decides to open a women-only gym.

Saida Cook was earlier a member but now has a franchise of three gyms. She says that she always wanted to be fit but couldn't go to the gym because men don't want to send their women to a place where men and women are together and my husband is also like that.

This gym is totally different in that there is no TV, no treadmills, no machines, but nothing that runs on electricity, so the cost is very low.

There are hydraulic machines for different muscles and a guidebook. Some women bring their children along, who are also provided with books and toys.

But not everyone is in favor of women-only gyms. Kalsum Kao says that separate activities for men and women are not good and can have the opposite effect. They say that in this way we will not be able to change the behavior of men

However, Yulia says that this is also a way of empowering women because when women do something for themselves only, think about their health, their body and their mental health, their perspective changes and they do things. Start looking at it differently.

Yulia says that over the years, she has realized that exercise has a positive effect on a person's mental health. Many people joined our gym, they were very disappointed, but coming here, their disappointment disappears