WHEN South Africa’s biggest fitness chain opened its second gym in Soweto last year, residents of the bustling black township signed up in droves. Within months the Jabulani gym had become the most successful of more than 120 Virgin Active clubs to launch in South Africa, drawing Sowetans for squats, lunges and lifts to DJ beats.
Virgin Active, a global brand mostly owned by Brait, a South African investment firm, thinks it can replicate this success elsewhere on the continent. It has two gyms in Namibia and has just opened its first in Botswana. A gym in Kenya is due to open later this year, and the firm is looking at Ghana and Zambia as possible future sites.
Africans are getting fatter, a side-effect of economic growth. The number of obese and overweight children has nearly doubled since 1990, from 5.4m to 10.3m, says the World Health Organisation. Mass migration to cities has allowed some Africans to go from malnourished to overweight in a generation, thanks to sedentary lifestyles and fatty diets. Many Africans still see a fuller figure as a sign of success, not to mention sexy.
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Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1Kd4ihD
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