SLIMONOMICS

For urban Indians strapped to office desks and living room couches, struggling with shooting blood sugar levels and bloating waistlines, fitness is the new aspiration and flab the four-letter word. And as young and old go from bingeing on trans-fat-sprinkled food to purging the calories at gyms, the bottomlines of India8217;s slimming industry are expanding. Experts peg the slim economy at around Rs 1,450 crore. Senior consultant, healthcare, Technopak Consultancy, Abhishek Pratap Singh says studies conducted by his organisation indicate that fitness, slimming centres and gyms account for Rs 1,100 crore of the market. Food supplements in form of various low-fat, low-sugar, sugar-free products and slimming pills account for Rs 350 crore. 8220;This industry is set for a growth of 13 per cent compounded annually and will reach Rs 2,000 crore by 2010,8221; he says.

Sonia Johnson, 27, a Bangalore-based radio jockey, for example, learns belly dancing twice a week for a trimmer figure. The classes set her back by a minimum of Rs 1,500 a month. She has also joined a gym that takes her monthly expenditure on fitness to Rs 5,000.

The market leader in the slimming services business is Vandana Luthra Curls and Curves Health Care Limited with a market share of 40 per cent. It now runs 110 centres in 52 cities across India. Every month, it has 75,000 customers knocking on its doors. 8220;There has been an overwhelming response from the tier-II and tier-III cities. People are becoming very conscious about their health and the way they look,8221; says Vandana Luthra, founder of the group.

But the health comes with a price tag8212;packages at VLCC start from Rs 500 and can be as expensive as Rs 25,000. According to a World Health Organisation study conducted in 2003, 50 million Indians are overweight. Of these, only five per cent opt for weight management and fuels the growth of this industry.

Khul ja gym-gym
From the late 1980s, when gyms catered only to men looking for bulging biceps to the expansion of fitness clinics in 1997, the industry has evolved in the last five years to include a rash of slimming centres. 8220;Initially, weight loss was looked upon as a cosmetic thing. But now the trend is changing to wellness and fitness,8221; says Dr Shikha Sharma, a Delhi-based nutritionist.

The latest fad: having a personal gym. From a homemaker who works out on training cycles or treadmills in the privacy of her bedroom to a corporate honcho sweating it out at a customised personal gym, the demand for the lean machines has soared. More and more corporate offices are also installing gyms in their workplaces to keep their crew in shape.

As Maharashtra-based gym equipment manufacturer, Harshal Khare, managing director of Khare Enterprises Pvt Ltd, points out, 8220;The personal gym section has seen a remarkable growth. From 20 per cent in 2001-02, it now accounts for 50 per cent of our sales. That figure can be as high as 70 per cent in the next 3-4 years.8221; Most of his clients are from the corporate sector, the hospitality industry and urban households.

A personal gym can be set up for as low as Rs 20, 000, which includes some basic facilities for fitness and cardio workouts. A commercial gym would cost anywhere between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore. 8220;As of now, this manufacturing industry is estimated at Rs 200 crore. But the figures will go up significantly with growing demand from metros,8221; he says.

If Khare were to be believed, it8217;s not just city slickers who are pushing up sales. The demand from villages is also expected to double in the next three years, he says.

Do or Diet
In the last few months, the market has seen a profusion of food products for the calorie-conscious. Walk into any supermarket and you8217;ll find stacks of low-fat curd and bread spreads jostling with bags of chips for your attention. The health food product industry alone has seen a growth of 20 per cent per annum even though it caters to a niche segment.

Amul has come out with a range of sugar-free frozen desserts, low-fat and low-cholesterol bread spreads, skimmed milk powder, double-toned milk, low-cal chocolate, Lite Slim N Trim Milk and Stamina Ice Candy. Nestle has also come out with Slim Milk, Slim Dahi, Kit Kat Lite, Everyday Slim Tea Whitener and Maggi Healthy Soup. Clearly, it8217;s a market waiting to explode. 8220;People are running away from fattening products. Therefore, we felt there is a need to launch low-calorie products,8221; says R.S. Sodhi, chief general manager, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. Even though the target segment is scattered and difficult to address directly, the response to the 8220;health products8221; has been encouraging, he adds. Swati Malhotra name changed on request, a 24-year-old working with a leading advertising agency, is a self-professed fan of the low-cal, fat-free range of products. 8220;I don8217;t want to compromise on food or the fun in life. I would rather spend on low-calorie products,8221; she says, 8220;Our lifestyles are sedentary and with increasing work hours, there is hardly any time to work out. At least I know I am making a right choice by sticking to low-cal food.8221;

But do they work? Says Dr P K Gupta, a Delhi-based consulting physician. 8220;These products do have less calories, but that doesn8217;t mean that they will help you reduce weight. They have a limited amount of benefit and have to be clubbed with exercise,8221; he adds

Look-good mantra
The change in the approach to weight management has been triggered by bigger structural changes. 8220;Today there is a premium on looking good,8221; says A.F. Mathews, assistant professor, MICA, Ahmedabad. But the rise in disposable incomes and aggressive marketing of health products, he says, is not always about health. For example, there has been a shift from traditional methods to technology like bariatrics or obesity surgery, which made its way to India two years ago. A bariatric surgical procedure costs between Rs 2 lakh to 4 lakh or more depending on various factors.

Dr Arun Prasad, senior consultant, minimal access surgery, says he gets 40-50 queries in a month on an average. 8220;The people calling up range from 16 to 50-year-olds. Most are women,8221; says Prasad. He recalls the case of an 18-year-old girl who wanted to get under the knife just to look 8216;good8217;. 8220;It took 4-5 sittings to convince her not to,8221; Prasad recalls. 8220;If a patient does not understand that the procedure can have a lifelong impact, we advise against it.8221;

As the boundaries between beauty and wellness blur, it8217;s not an advice that is heeded a lot. And as the slimming industry laughs all the way to the bank, it8217;s clear8212;health has never been more about wealth.

A HERBAL HORROR
My build can be best described as 8220;beyond wholesome8221;. My mother is slightly trimmer. But when Herbalife salesmen came to our house in Kolkata, peddling their magic kit for weight-loss, mom fell for the trap. So she shelled out Rs 3,500 and bought a recipe for disaster. Eat one meal a day, the weight wizards told her, and for the rest of the day, survive on food supplements and pills.
My mother followed the instructions to a T mix Herbalife supplement in water, try and believe it is chocolate shake and drink it in one gulp and move on to the next glass.
The results followed: frequent cough and cold, weakness, complete exhaustion, a gaunt appearance and loss of mental peace. As father and I watched her grow increasingly irritable and distressed, we knew we had to step in. So we pumped her with sense and a nutritious meal. On a full stomach, she regained her senses and chucked the powders. I got my mother back, my father his wife and even if there was no happily ever after, at least one could argue energetically, this is where good food counts. All that remains of Herbalife are the snazzy containers in our kitchen8212;and they are stuffed with wholesome spices.
8212;Anushree Majumdar

Herbalife responds: 8220;We are a global organisation with about 30,000 distributors and we always ask the client to check with our in-house nutritionist in Bangalore. There is always a possibility ofnbsp;a communication gap that cannot be blamed on any party,8221;said Raman Handoo, Herbalife, Bangalore.