Saturday, June 05, 2010

Gym tells woman she's too fat for workout equipment

An Oklahoma woman said a gym she joined told her to stop using certain equipment because she was too overweight. Five months ago Sandra Ruiz gave birth to her son but with that came some extra weight she wanted to get rid of. Ruiz said she weighs about 385 pounds. "I'm tired of being fat because when I go to the store, I can't find clothes that fit me. I haven't worn jeans in a year," Ruiz said.

Ruiz joined Mademoiselle Fitness Center in south Oklahoma City. During one of her visits, Ruiz said a worker approached her while she was on a stationary bike and told her to get off. "The lady said I couldn't get on the machines because we are overweight," Ruiz said. "Everybody was watching seeing what was going on, and I got very sad because I'm so emotional about my weight right now."



She said the gym told her she could instead use their aerobics room to walk in, but Ruiz said if she wanted to just walk she would do that outside for free. Ruiz said that's what she is now doing and why she wants out of her contract and doesn't feel she should have to pay their cancellation fee.

"If ya'll didn't want big people to get on your machine, ya'll would have told us, and if we would have known, we wouldn't have come here," Ruiz said. The owner of Mademoiselle Fitness Center said Ruiz had been informed from the start that there were certain pieces of equipment she couldn't use for her own safety, and also because of the equipment's weight limit. Ruiz said she was never told that.

With news video.

1 comment:

cath said...

Really poor PR on the part of the company.

They should have informed the woman before she signed a contract exactly what equipment she would be able to use at her starting weight, and at what weights she would be able to use the other pieces. Failing that, a trainer should have quietly taken her aside, explained the situation in a private place, and offered her a refund or discount... or perhaps a cancellation with credit to rejoin the club once her weight would allow her to use the equipment. They could have made a loyal customer for life and earned some good word-of-mouth publicity, but instead they made themselves look like a bunch of jerks.