Just over a year ago, I attended a Physical Activity Network seminar in Westminster, organised to report on the progress of this offshoot of the government’s much-vaunted Responsibility Deal. The Deal, you will remember, is the government’s strategy to lower obesity in the UK, and I had hoped to find that the work being led by the FIA (now ukactive) and supported by health clubs was significantly more successful than what I perceived to be the very limited achievements of the Deal’s Food Network. I came away, however, bitterly disappointed. My impression was that the seminar had been a session going nowhere, populated by club owners far more interested in mixing with friends than in getting adults and children back into regular activity.

I had wanted to know, in particular, how advanced club owners’ plans might be to ensure the government’s pledge for an Olympic physical activity legacy would be honoured. I didn’t hear of any! How awful. The result is that today, just over a year later, children especially are finding it difficult or impossible to find the sporting facilities needed in their quest to emulate their Olympic heroes. Team GB exceeded its expected medal haul, but no owners appeared to have had the faith to plan for that possibility.

With the connections to Whitehall that this think-tank has, how much had it clamoured for the minimum hours of physical activity in primary schools to be mandatory rather than aspirational? Not much it seemed. Children need one hour of moderately intensive exercise every day; the two hours a week they get of scheduled time is paltry. In some schools they may not even get that. Owners of health clubs across the UK should now be urgently linking up with schools, offering schemes to get their pupils active, if they are not to fail the children on whom our success in Rio and Chicago will depend.

If there are enlightened club owners who are already doing what I ask, I will apologise rapidly for my criticism – I’m quite sure that I will be hearing from them. On the other hand, a miniscule number of rebukes received may prove my point. My email inbox awaits.

Childhood obesity levels continue to rise dramatically. The NHS predicts a 10 per cent rise in the prevalence of obesity among people under 20 years of age by 2015, and 14 per cent by 2025. Meanwhile, a recent study by the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, UK, indicated that 75 per cent of parents of overweight children do not even realise their children are overweight. Parents, schools, the NHS and the community at large are not getting the job done.

Our industry could therefore benefit tremendously by being the authority in a new youth fitness movement, taking the lead on battling this epidemic. We need to ask ourselves: do we want to trust less informed, less resourceful influences to solve this problem and develop our future customers for us, or should we be taking the lead now?

To become the leaders in this worthy crusade, more clubs will need to form long-term strategies focused on developing these emerging markets patiently and systematically over time. This is counter-intuitive to our traditional monthly cash flow business model, whose success is frequently dependent on membership sales strategies that are short-sighted and intense. However, it’s not necessarily a risky proposition either: consider the fact that most obese children also have one or more obese parents, who also need our help.

If I were a young and ambitious trainer today, I’d be spending time developing new business opportunities outside the four walls of the gym, targeting this market with entry level family training options that eventually prepare those people for enrolment into a gym as well. Our entire industry would do well to develop similar strategies to capitalise on this huge opportunity.

As a paediatric exercise scientist, this is something that’s very close to my heart. Personally I have gone full circle with this debate, from supplier to now operator, and that was partly due to attitudes within the industry.

I have a burning passion for the youth activity market, and that helped form the original SHOKK concept and brand 15 years ago. In the early days, everyone loved what SHOKK did and appreciated our passion, but this is where the commitment and input seemed to stop.

The key to any successful delivery to children is to employ quality staff and keep it varied and fresh. Many other activity offerings in this field criticised whether a youth gym could not only work but also sustain interest. “Kids should be running in the fields” was a typical response from some. To a certain extent I agree, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that a physical activity venue offers all of the same advantages to a child as it does to an adult.

So what’s the gap in thinking? Well it’s not rocket science: you need great people, great service, varied and wide-ranging activities, and you must do everything with a smile on your face. Very importantly, you must also do everything with the end customer in mind – the child. Combine that with marketing to parents and children alike and you’ll achieve sustained activity and the beginnings of adherence to exercise.

Unfortunately the philosophy of some operators suggests that kids are an after-thought, so it’s no surprise when the business outputs reflect this. Put children to the top of your agenda and understand the parent and child requirements and you’re halfway there. Drop in oodles of structured sales, marketing and retention activity – in the same way you would at a quality adult facility – promoting an environment that’s been designed specifically for kids, and you’ve cracked it.

We can learn from others too: go to the Disney store to see how it’s done for the under-eights, or Apple for teenagers.