Fitness Discrimination

By. Biffon Momanyi

Over the years, Moi University’s two small rooms that resemble a fitness center has been accused of favoring the male gender over the female gender students, this comes as a result of the old heavy metals resembling the modern equipment of a fitness center, the available equipment plus the condition and size of the fitness facility has been termed a total frustration by students who have used it before.

Moi University has a population of over 20 thousand students in session annually, out of this only ten percent engage in fitness activities within the fitness center while around 15% go for morning runs, this means that over 50% of students rarely engage themselves in any fitness activity while in school raising concerns over their health. The available fitness center next to hostels K and L has old, discouraging equipment that can only be used by a few male students while ladies sort themselves by either going for morning runs or participating in sports activities which most of them rarely do.

The gym facility authorities in Moi university main campus has been charging ksh. 500 as membership fee for a semester. But the condition has never ceased to surprise my eyes every time I look at the facility, this raises the big question, where does this money go? Furthermore the two small rooms cannot even accommodate a population of 200 students in a day, that’s why congestion has always been a fragment of the facility.

Little measures has been taken by the university to improve the facility so as to meet the conditions and standards of a modern Fitness center. “I use the facility because I don’t have an option but for sure no equipment is satisfactory at all”, said one of the students using the facility.

The students cry over the conditions of the facility never seem to be reaching the university management and maybe that is why the condition never seems to change any soon.

Being aware of the effects of physical inactivity, having a better fitness facility at an affordable cost could be part of the wishes of many comrades, it is the same facility that could save many lives in our fraternity today and in the future from chronic diseases.

It is indeed time for the university management to also consider the female gender in the fitness world, they also want to be fit as much as the male gender wishes to. As for now the female students in Moi University will still be forced to use the one and most preferred option of morning runs around the school.