Exam Gloves
Latex
Powdered
Powder Free
Nitrile
Vinyl
Industrial
Nitrile
Vinyl
Knitted
Cloth
Rubber
Safety
Latex
Utility
Polyethylene
Latex
|
 
How
Healthy are
Health Clubs?
Hidden Toxins in
Your Workout Environment
by Janet Allen
The greatest danger of pollution may well be
that we shall tolerate levels of it so low as to have no acute nuisance
value, but sufficiently high, nevertheless, to cause delayed disease and
spoil the quality of life. -Scientist and environmentalist Rene Dubois
The fact that the suburbanite is not instantly
stricken has little meaning, for the toxins may sleep long in his body, to
become manifest months or years later in an obscure disorder almost
impossible to trace to its origins. -Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
What's in the air, water, walls, insulation,
pipes, vents, floors, and carpeting of your health club? Could cumulative
exposure to their hidden toxins wreak havoc on your body?
It has been estimated that at least 50% of
Americans suffer from some chronic illness, and the very places where we
tend to feel most protected-our homes, our jobs, our health clubs-may be
the greatest culprits in this nation's alarming downhill spiral into
disease. "Living in a large city means shared breathing spaces with
lots of other people," says Gene Burke, a health researcher for the
last 20 years and operator of Environ-Doctors, a company that analyzes
indoor environments for toxicity problems, for the last 11. A
self-described "Indoor Environmental Hygienist," Burke himself
experiences chemical sensitivity illness-a condition in which one cannot
function due to a wide range of ordinary chemicals-on a daily basis. In an
attempt to deal with this condition, he became an expert in uncovering the
source of toxicity problems, as well as offering solutions and
alternatives.
As a fitness enthusiast since my teens, I've shelled out membership dues
to a wide variety of different workout establishments and observed
numerous violations to my health sensibilities along the way. At times
I've complained to management about the worst offenses, but rarely have my
suggestions been taken seriously. It has always bothered me that the
owners of health clubs seemed more concerned with decor, accessories
(juice bars, personal tv's), and sales gimmicks (membership specials,
house brand nutritional supplements) than living up to the true nature of
their business name. After all, if customers are paying large fees for the
privilege of attending a health center, shouldn't they expect the
environment to be "healthy?"
Health Club Hazards:
Loud Music, Lousy Air
One of the more prevalent problems in health clubs (apart from
over-amplified music during aerobics classes) has been what feels like a
severe lack of oxygen and air flow in the cardiovascular fitness areas.
Many clubs are sealed up like a can of sardines, without windows that open
for fresh air, and what "the sardines" are breathing is
completely dependent upon whatever circulation system may be installed,
and how well it is maintained.
Burke looks upon a building and its inhabitants as an interactive
organism. "These are systems here, they're complexes. There's an
electrical system, a gas system, a plumbing system, a structural system,
and a moisture system for the air, as well as in the pipes." To
determine the health of this organism, he says, investigation is required.
"If a system was insulated, what was it insulated with? Is moisture
being evacuated the way it should? How is the HVAC
(heating/ventilation/air conditioning) system being maintained? Look in
the maintenance storage closets to see what noxious chemical agents might
be hiding out. What about chlorine vapors from indoor swimming pools? Are
mold and fungi, bacteria and germs, dust mites, toxic fumes or other
particulate being constantly recirculated through the entire complex by
leaky vacuum cleaners and dirty air vents and filters?"
Burke stresses that indoor spaces with improper HVAC circulation often
have elevated Carbon Dioxide levels. Using CO2 measuring monitors and
equipment in office buildings where workers have complained of feeling
drowsy, fatigued, or nauseous, he has found in many instances that safe
levels of CO2-1,000ppm or under-have risen into the dangerous territory of
1,500 to 2,000ppm.
Burke is adamant about empowering others to be responsible for their own
well-being. He encourages patrons to pay attention to what's in their
club's atmosphere (air, water, carpets, ducts, pipes and so forth) before
all those people crowd into the room and start sweating, huffing and
puffing their bodily fluids and gases into the shared pool of oxygen.
"When you go into your dance, aerobics, or yoga studio, be aware that
the odds are 98 to 1 that there are toxic janitorial supplies being used
on a daily basis to clean that indoor environment," he says.
"During heavy exercise, when you are inhaling and exhaling at an
accelerated rate and your pulse is pounding at 110 to 130 beats per
minute, what you are breathing becomes critically important. You are now
ingesting copious amounts of air, an oxygen cocktail which still contains
remnants from whatever commercial products were used that morning or the
night before. Those unregulated, industrial-strength chemicals used for
cleaning and disinfecting the carpets and floors, workout equipment,
locker rooms, pool and Jacuzzi, mirrors and windows-all those poisons are
being sucked into your lungs and then straight into your
bloodstream."
Toxic Cleaning Tools
Burke has years of hands-on experience in observing the effects of
exposure to chemicals. "When I got involved with residential and
commercial problems, whether dealing with odor complaints, poor
ventilation, chronic fatigue symptoms, or allergic reactions, more than
50% of these were related to the use of toxic products."
David Steinman, author of The Safe Shopper's Bible: A Consumer's Guide to
Nontoxic Household Products and Living Health in a Toxic World, agrees:
"People do get sick. It may not apply to everybody, some people may
be resilient, but a significant percentage of the population is sensitive
to one chemical or another, and they have the right to know what's in
their products."
Both experts strongly encourage people to inquire exactly what is being
used at their exercise facilities. I decided to ask a few questions
myself. I spoke with the operations or maintenance managers at several
gyms, most of whom were clueless about the names of the cleaners or their
exact ingredients, the type of vacuums being used, how often the carpets
got steam cleaned or the air duct systems got scrubbed out. As a rule, I
felt discomforted to hear mostly ambiguous information: "We have
industrial strength vacuums." "We hire a janitorial service, but
I'm not sure what they use." "We buy products in large
containers and then pour them into smaller ones, which are labeled as to
their use."
Joe, Operations Manager at a Bally's Gym in the San Fernando Valley, could
not give me any specifics about the cleaning products they routinely
purchase from the Grainger Co. and was hesitant to let me see his OSHA
ingredients list until he checked to see if it was company policy. He said
that carpets are steam cleaned only once every two months or so, as
coordinated by the regional supervisor, and the air filter is changed
every three to four months, but he did not believe professionals were ever
called in to thoroughly clean the club's air duct system. "We pull
the dust out of the vents the best we can with a vacuum cleaner," he
explained. Carl, the Service Manager at another Bally's location, informed
me that the showers were cleaned with the conventional industrial solvents
"Co-Star" and the floors with "LM#8," a 3M Company
product. "What are the ingredients in those products?" I
inquired. "I'll find out and call you back." He never did.
"The ingredients probably aren't listed," says Steinman, who
claims that the labeling requirements for industrial versions of cleaners
are no different from those for household products. "They just give
you an MSDS
(Material Safety Data Sheet) if you request it, but that doesn't include
all the ingredients."
In order to give readers the detailed information they aimed to in Safe
Shopper's Bible, Steinman and Epstein had to access federal workplace
disclosure laws by forming their own cleaning company, thereby allowing
them to obtain product ingredient lists from the manufacturing
industry-information to which the average consumer is not privy. What they
discovered was disturbing on all counts.
According to Steinman, the products marketed to businesses are often more
toxic than those sold to consumers for household use. "Since some
people may spend [part of] four, five, or six days a week at a health
club, that could be a significant added danger," he says.
"Concentrated vapors from toxic chemicals in a sealed building with
lack of adequate ventilation can cause an exposure even greater than a
factory worker's."
Pesticides and Cosmetics
Apart from toxic cleaners and disinfectants, other less-obvious substances
in health clubs may pose a significant danger: pesticides and
cosmetic-hygiene products. According to Steinman, pest extermination
products dispersed in tightly sealed buildings are "one of the most
dangerous exposures people have, depending on the degree of spraying and
the regularity of it. It's not just for termites, it's for ants, roaches,
rats, any kind of pest, and the chemicals that traditionally have been
used are highly toxic and cancer-causing, interfering with
reproduction." However, unless these critters are safely controlled,
they have an impact upon another aspect of indoor air quality. "Air
ducts should be rat, rodent and pest-free, because otherwise you're going
to get dust mites, cockroaches, rat feces, all sorts of things from
animals screwing about up there." Steinman emphasizes the need for
operations supervisors to hire a bio-remediation expert to handle this
specialized area of maintenance. "It's pretty difficult to keep
rodents and other pests out of these areas, so if you really want to be
careful, you should have someone clean them twice a year."
Cosmetic-hygiene products-soap, shampoos, and conditioners available in
health club dispensers-are another issue. In some cases, clubs may be
required by law to notify members about hidden dangers lurking in their
locker rooms. Some chemicals in cosmetics are listed on Proposition 65's
"Cancer-Causing & Reproductive Harm List," reports Steinman.
"Anyone who dispenses them in a public setting has to notify
consumers. Many businesses do that, but I suspect that a health club
wouldn't know what's in its cosmetics, soaps, conditioners, and shampoos;
they would not make that connection."
Burke's advice to the consumer is simple, but strict: "If you can
smell it, be wary of it, or better yet, avoid it. Most perfumes and
fragrances are synthetic, chemically-derived, unregulated products. If it
says "lemon scented," look in the ingredients-it's a pretty sure
bet there won't be any real lemon in there."
Chlorination
In my discussions with health club managers, the one thing everyone was
sure about was that chlorine was used in large amounts in the pool and spa
to kill bacteria. They seemed pretty confident that was a good thing, and
was effective. This widely used, culturally-accepted chemical may be
successful at killing most germs, but the method comes with a hefty price
tag. The Material Safety Data Sheet on chlorine specifically says:
"DANGER: POISON. Liquid chlorine is a severe skin irritant. Dermal
contact will produce burns. Contact with the eyes will cause severe
damage. Vapors are extremely irritating to the respiratory tract and may
cause breathing difficulty and pulmonary edema."
In addition to its direct toxic effects on living organisms, chlorine also
reacts with organic materials in the environment to create other hazardous
and carcinogenic toxins, including trihalomethanes, chloroform (THMs), and
organochlorines, an extremely dangerous class of compounds (the most well
known being Dioxin) that cause reproductive, endocrine, and immune system
disorders. Steinman indicates that there are medical studies which clearly
link the amounts of pool chlorine to asthma attacks, skin conditions,
rashes, and allergies.
Chlorine has prevented neither Burke nor I from catching severe flus and
sinus infections (respectively) shortly after swimming in heavily dosed
public swimming pools. Burke has since learned from a variety of qualified
water chemists and sanitation experts that this supposed microbial panacea
doesn't kill everything, and what it does kill may take as long as 30
minutes up to an hour-and-a-half to be affected. Steinman, too, believes
"it would be naive to presuppose that the chlorine kills all the
bacteria and viruses in a large pool setting with many, many people coming
in. You're assuming full dispersal and full contact. Polio used to be
spread that way; that's why, back in the '50s, parents wouldn't let their
kids swim in public pools."
Both men agree the process of ozonation works as an effective, non-toxic
substitute for chlorine. In fact, this safer alternative is currently
employed by the Santa Monica YMCA (which has completely eliminated
chlorination in favor of ozone plus bromide), as well as several U.S.
cities as their chief method of purifying and disinfecting the community
water supplies.
"The majority of fitness clubs have breached their customers'
confidence in their ability to maintain superior hygiene standards and to
ensure their member's overall welfare," Burke concludes.
"Inadequate ventilation, overcrowded atmospheres, chlorinated pools
and spas, and toxic janitorial supplies-combine those with the winter flu
season and potential terrorist biological attacks, and it's obvious why
increased vigilance is imperative as never before in our exercise
facilities. We need health club administrators who are truly passionate
about the issues of cleanliness and hygiene."
Steinman agrees. "If you think about a health club in an ideal sense,
promoting health, it would seem they'd want to take a comprehensive view
of what that means. The best thing socially conscious people can do is to
ask questions, make suggestions, and influence the management to become
more sensitive to these problems."
As a child growing up in the inversion-layer-prone San Fernando Valley, I
remember the news broadcasters warning us to take precautions against that
thick, brown layer of filth. "Don't go outside if you don't have to,
and above all, don't exercise!" At Hazeltine Elementary School in Van
Nuys, we weren't allowed to enjoy our usual playground recess, and such
days took on a strangely macabre mood.
Then in early adulthood, I was dismayed to hear the report of a medical
study showing that children who were raised in the Valley had one-third
less lung capacity than children raised breathing unpolluted air. Now,
thanks to off-gassing plastics, toxic paints and glues, carcinogenic
fire-retardants in carpets, couches and drapes, particleboard furniture
emitting formaldehyde fumes, silicon-dependent computers, home and garden
pesticides, poisonous household chemicals, and a bevy of molds and fungi
playing hide-and-seek in secret crevices, reports show indoor air to be
many times "dirtier" than the air outside. It appears that
Americans have inadvertently brought those Stage 3 smog alerts inside,
into our familial nesting grounds, our offices, and our grown-up health
club "playgrounds" where recess continues on as normal.
-Janet Allen has been a
health, food safety, and environmental journalist, public speaker, and
activist for the last 18 years. She is a coordinator with the Organic
Consumers Association, and has her own non-profit organization, Wild Blue
Planet.
|
Home
About
Us
Contact
Us
Store
Policies
Glossary
of Terms
|
