65% of women avoid the gym for these reasons<\/a>, while 45% say they feel \u201ctoo unfit\u201d to begin. Reports also show an increase in gym-related harassment since 2021, with seven in 10 women experiencing intimidation compared with 48% of men.<\/p>\nVan der Westhuizen said access to wellness spaces has improved, but barriers remain.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet, a staggering number of people, most of them women, cannot bring themselves to walk through the entrance of a gym door. Not because they don\u2019t want to! It\u2019s because walking in makes them feel like they are stepping onto a stage they were never invited onto,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Fear, mindset and lived experience<\/p>\n
She also reflected on her own experience of discouragement early in her fitness journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cA trainer once told me I was too slow and that I was wasting my time. That moment didn\u2019t break me. The trainer who tried to challenge my fitness journey never knew he was speaking to a woman who would go on to complete multiple Ironman triathlons, paddle the Dusi Canoe Marathon, swim 7.5km across the Robben Island Channel in 11-degree water, and become the first South African all-female blind-and-sighted pair to cycle tandem across the Himalayas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Van der Westhuizen said feelings of discomfort in gym environments are linked to biological responses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people walk into a gym and feel judged, exposed or out of place, their nervous system reads that as danger,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe amygdala fires. Cortisol spikes, and the brain\u2019s single job in that specific moment, is to get you out. Avoidance isn\u2019t a weakness. It\u2019s biology.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said repeated avoidance can reinforce fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cConfidence doesn\u2019t come before action. It comes from feeling safe enough to start,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
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