In June of 2013, the American Medical Association officially categorized obesity as a disease. Along with other companies throughout the nation, peerFit has joined the fight against obesity, but it began years before AMA jumped on board.
peerFit is an organization that allows people to research and find group fitness classes in their area while also motivating them to attend. The drive behind this organization is to help those looking to add a little fitness to their lifestyle, but lacking the resources to do so.
Matt Redinger, one of four co-founders and vice president of finance and operations of peerFit, discussed the push to get healthy. Redinger believes that the amount of information on health and wellness has reached its tipping point: a tip in the right direction.
“It’s just that the awareness has reached such a saturation nthat everybody realizes, okay now we need to do somethings about it,” Redinger said. “Whereas before a lot of people knew about it, a lot of people were talking about it, but not enough people.”
Redinger believes the healthcare system also has a lot to do with it. Though there are a lot of mixed feelings about healthcare, one thing most corporations agree on is encouraging their employees to maintain a healthy lifestyle, Redinger said.
“They’re more aware of how being healthy is important for employees,” Redinger said, “not just for their bottom line, even though it does affect their bottom line with insurance costs and things like that, but also healthy employees are happier. They’re active; they work harder when they’re at work because they’re overall healthier people. They don’t get tired as easily. They’re more focused. So I think the fact that employers are really focused on that recently has helped drive that activity as well.”
So how exactly does peerFit fit into all this? As Redinger mentioned, the key word here is “awareness.” The goal of peerFit is to encourage people to attend group fitness classes in the hopes that they will find the motivation to get fit.
Ed Buckley, co-founder and president of peerFit first came up with the idea while teaching a group fitness class. He had taken over for another instructor and realized that within a few weeks of teacing his class, attendance had doubled.
Curious about this sudden change, Buckley did a little primary research and found that when he wrote his exercises for the class on the board and left them there after the class was over, gym members would see it and decide they wanted to start coming to his class. Thus the idea for peerFit was born.
Zumba, Pilates and yoga are all found on peerFit’s Passport which allows you to try six classes in 60 days at various gyms all over Gainesville. The idea for this opportunity was thought up after much research and having people constantly tell Buckley of their desire to find group fitness classes in their city.
“People need an excuse to try things,” Buckley said. “People need their hand help. People don’t want to have to make a decision and make the wrong decision. Passport solves all those at the same time.”
Scott Peeples, senior vice president in charge of product development, believes that because of the prior lack of information and directory, many were hesitant to even begin to workout. Now that peerFit has made the group fitness schedule mobile and easily accessible with the phone application and website, people are getting into the fitness groove.
“Culturally, I think you’re seeing more realization that there’s a kind of fitness that can fit anybody, that it doesn’t have to be going and lifting weights in the gym,” Peeples said.
Though the goal is to help others, peerFit is a business and with business comes competition, but not everyone sees it that way.
“I don’t view those people as competition,” Peeples said. “It’s a much bigger issue than can we selfishly get everybody using peerFit and not having to try to work out anywhere else. There’s plenty of space and there’s plenty of need for helping people find exercise in whatever way it needs to fit in their life.”
I have experience working with peerFit as a blogging intern in the summer of 2013.
