URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/04/29/EDGAB6C1IO 1.DTL
FOR WOMEN of a certain age, Curves -- a physical-fitness chain -- seems like a blessing. No men, no mirrors. No expensive membership fees, no complicated dance-step routines.
Just walk in and change into your frumpiest sweats. Get a 30-minute complete workout on a circuit of hydraulic machines, arranged in a sociable circle so you meet other women. Nothing to remember: A pre-recorded voice tells you when to switch machines and do aerobics on rubberized mats. Get dressed and you're out the door.
What's not to like? Curves is inviting, rather than intimidating. Unlike many gyms, Curves fitness outlets don't feel like "meat markets" or look like nightclubs. By offering easy and accessible exercise, Curves helps some 2 million overweight and overworked middle-age women lose weight, get fit and improve their health -- just what public-health officials hector us to do.
Not surprisingly, Curves is wildly successful. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, it now boasts 7,500 outlets and is the fastest-growing franchise in the world.
There are 68 outlets within 25 miles of downtown San Francisco. Most of them are tucked away in nondescript strip malls or office buildings, which keeps monthly membership fees as low as $29. Such modest locations also enhance the profits of franchise owners, who pay $29,000 to open a Curves outlet, plus a monthly royalty fee of $395. (For many women, it's a relatively inexpensive and convenient way to start a small business.)
So is there any reason why you shouldn't rush out to join this Wal-Mart of gyms that's helping so many women improve their health?
Well, yes. The owner, Gary Heavin, has given at least $5 million of his profits to some of the most militant anti-abortion groups in the country.
Heavin, like his next-door neighbor George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas, found redemption as a grown man. Before founding Curves in 1992, he went bankrupt, lost custody of his two children and served a six-month jail sentence for not paying child support. In prison, he became a born-again Christian.
In 2003, Heavin and his wife gave away $10 million -- 10 percent of their company's gross revenues -- to charities. At least half of that money went to three Texas organizations to fund "pregnancy crisis centers" supported by Operation Save America -- the same organization that blamed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on God's retribution for abortions and whose purpose, as described on its Web site, is to "unashamedly take up the cause of pre-born children in the name of Jesus Christ."
By offering the same health services provided by Planned Parenthood -- except abortion -- anti-abortion activists hope that privately financed alternatives will force the closure of any clinics that don't insist "you must carry your child to term."
Heavin, as he explained in a recent Christianity Today article, is proud to support these organizations. But at a few Bay Area outlets, both members and owners seemed surprised to learn this.
Leslie Warren, an Oakland hair stylist, quit a Curves outlet Wednesday because of Heavin's support of anti-abortion activism. In response, the franchise owner told Warren that Heavin does not use profits from Curves to support such organizations.
Some members, of course, share Heavin's religious beliefs. At 5-foot-3 inches, Brenda Hadley, a student adviser at Texas A & M University, had ballooned to 165 pounds. "If it wasn't for God sticking with me and the special relationships I've made with the Curves ladies," she told Christianity Today, "I'd still be sitting in my apartment watching movies and stuffing myself with Big Macs." Hadley said she lost 32 pounds at Curves.
Annie Lamott, a Bay Area writer whose last book was titled "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith," had a different response to Heavin's anti- abortion contributions. "I like Curves a lot but I love women's rights more. I hate the idea that this right-wing fundamentalist is making a profit on these places that make it easy for women to exercise. I don't see how, in good conscience, someone like me, a staunch feminist and progressive, can in any way contribute to any organization that undermines women's rights."
Here, then, is a feminist dilemma. Curves targets Baby Boomer women -- many of whom consider themselves feminists -- precisely because it offers a refuge from gyms that cater to musclemen or singles. Yet Heavin's contributions to anti-abortion groups goes against many women's deeply held belief that they should have the right to make their own reproductive choices.
What to do? Your decision. There are alternatives, including just plain walking.
E-mail Ruth Rosen at rrosen at sfchronicle.com.