Curves International, also known as Curves for Women, Curves Fitness, or just Curves, is an international fitness franchise co-founded by Gary and Diane Heavin in 1995. Curves was said to have 10,000 locations worldwide and an estimated 4 million plus members in October 2006. In May 2012, the company's website listed 3,175 locations in the United States). The company is privately held by its co-founders, with corporate offices located in Waco, Texas. Curves fitness and weight loss facilities are designed specifically for and focused on women, although in some states, men are allowed to join.
The clubs compete with other women's-only chain health clubs, including Spa Lady and Lucille Roberts.
History
Curves was founded by Gary Heavin and his wife, Diane. They opened their first Curves in Harlingen, Texas, in 1992. This new concept of 30-minute fitness, strength training, weight-loss guidance, and an environment designed for women was immediately successful. They began to develop plans for franchising the concept, with the first opening in 1999. Curves claims it is the world's largest fitness franchise and was recently recognized as one of the 10 largest franchise companies in the world. According to Curves International Inc's fact sheet, Curves achieved 6,000 franchises in 7 years. Curves facilities are located in over 85 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Japan. Curves is known as FitCurves in Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Kazakhstan, Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia.
Curves fitness and weight loss facilities are designed specifically for and focused on women. The program is designed around circuit training, which utilizes hydraulic resistance equipment to achieve results. The strength training regimen is combined with cardiovascular training for a full body workout.
Starting A Fitness Center Video
Research at Baylor University
In 2002, the Exercise & Sports Nutrition Laboratory at Baylor University began researching the efficacy of the Curves fitness and weight loss program. Curves awarded the ESNL a $5 million, five-year grant to start the Curves Women's Health Initiative.
In 2008 this grant funding moved with Dr. Richard Kreider to the Texas A&M University.
Controversies
Gary Heavin's charitable contributions
In 2004, Curves International and its franchisees received some mixed and unwanted publicity stemming from articles about the charitable contributions of founder Gary Heavin.
Heavin was heavily praised by pro-life advocates for pulling all contributions to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity due to the fact that Komen donated money to Planned Parenthood in grants as part of Komen's efforts to support this community organization.
In an interview with Today's Christian, Heavin was quoted as saying that he donates money to "pro-life pregnancy care centers."
The San Francisco Chronicle printed an article by Ruth Rosen, accusing Heavin of supporting militant anti-abortion groups. However, in an open letter to the Chronicle, Heavin challenged Rosen's characterization of his contributions. The Chronicle later published a correction which included a breakdown of the contributions at question. The contributions were given to three groups, Family Practice Center of McLennan County ($3.75 million), McLennan County Collaborative Abstinence Project ($275,000) and Care Net ($1 million.)
Numerous blogs picked up the Rosen's version of the story, and several other articles on the subject subsequently appeared in other mainstream media. The publicity affected business at some individual franchises, particularly in the U.S. West Coast region (specifically California) and a few in the Atlantic Northeast and Pacific Northwest, causing an uproar from franchisees of Curves International.
Despite this attempted re-characterization of the donations, business was affected, with memberships down and some franchisees severing their ties with Curves.
Another controversy came into play in 2005 when six plaintiffs brought a suit against Curves, Gary Heavin, and Roger Schmidt (the company's attorney) for $20 million. The plaintiffs claimed that Heavin cheated them out of their share of profits by he and Roger Schmidt pressuring them to sign a buyout contract allotting them a fraction of what they might have earned.
Most of the plaintiffs were hired as independent sales reps after Curves had already opened hundreds of locations. The lawsuit failed to mention that the sales reps were paid more than $26 million for their work.
In popular culture
Curves has been parodied in The Simpsons, in the episode entitled Husbands and Knives, in which Marge opens a successful franchise of a gym called Shapes, and in an episode of South Park entitled D-Yikes!. In The New Adventures of Old Christine, Christine owns a gym extremely similar to Curves - a franchised 30-minute gym for women where a recorded voice tells them to "change stations" every 30 seconds.
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