Ohio State exercise experts weigh in on how students’ New Year’s fitness resolutions affect campus gym attendance. Credit: Lantern File Photo
On Dec. 6, 2023, the last day of regularly scheduled classes for the autumn semester, the total number of BuckID swipes used to enter gym facilities across campus was 8,245.
Roughly one month later on Jan. 8, this semester’s first day of regularly scheduled classes, that number rose to 13,463.
As Ohio State’s senior associate director of recreational sports Marci Shumaker said, this disparity represents an annual cycle in which campus gyms become increasingly packed at the beginning of the spring semester as many students are trying to fulfill and maintain their New Year’s fitness resolutions. Rick Petosa, Ohio State professor in health and exercise science, said this pattern, which sees gym attendance tend to decline as the year progresses, is observable in not only college students but adults in general.
Petosa said this trend can be best explained by the theory of reasoned action — a phenomenon whereby people have intentions to exercise rather than a plan to exercise.
“People love to set goals because the goals make them feel better,” Petosa said. “Very few people take it from that intention to actually developing a plan and then implementing the plan.”
Petosa said a concept called the Dunning-Kruger effect can also help explain why so many people are not successful in achieving their fitness goals. This effect states that the less experienced someone is with exercise, the more likely they are to underestimate the time and energy required to do so, set unrealistic fitness resolutions and inevitably fail, he said.
“Most of the things we do in our daily lives involve sitting and processing information,” Petosa said. “Exercise is getting up and actually using your body, which people call physical labor. So for a lot of people, it’s not part of their daily routine and there are substantial barriers to being physically active in a long-term sense.”
Throughout her 25 years at Ohio State, Shumaker, who oversees all programs, memberships, communications and data regarding Ohio State gym facilities, said she has observed the tendency for a high gym-going population throughout January and February, largely due to worsening weather conditions.
However, once March rolls around, she said there is a noticeable decrease in gym attendance.
“It’s partly because the weather gets better,” Shumaker said. “And I think people’s goals aren’t as far forward in their minds as maybe they are in January and February.”
To overcome these fitness barriers, Shumaker said Ohio State is working toward encouraging students to stay physically active year-round.
One way the university is doing so is through a new app called Ohio State Recreational Sports, which launched Jan. 8 and is powered by recreation mobile app FusionGo. The new app allows students to view facility operation hours, serves as another form of identification to enter the facilities and sends out important alerts concerning any relevant gym updates.
“I think it’s just creating as much access as possible, so that as many activities can be offered as possible this time of year when there’s the most demand,” Shumaker said.
Beyond the Ohio State Recreational Sports app, Shumaker said the university is employing various strategies — like introducing new fitness classes, upping housekeeping and encouraging participation in drop-in intramurals — to encourage students to maintain their gym-going even as winter melts away.
“Right now, all of the facilities are open, so you have lots to choose from,” Shumaker said. “They’re all gonna just be really busy these next few months, which is great. There’s lots of people who are new, and it’s exciting to see lots of people deciding to try different things.”
Regardless of how Ohio State students choose to get active, Petosa said he hopes they will keep an open mind and prioritize the process above all else.
“A lot of people when they set an intention, they focus on results like, ‘I’m going to look better, I’m going to get bigger, I’m going to be more fit,’ as opposed to the process, enjoying the exercise that they’re doing,” Petosa said. “If you’re gonna stick with something, enjoyment is very helpful. So, I always encourage people to pick a variety of activities and to pick activities that you enjoy doing.”
