Given the UK's growing health crisis – alongside the continued rise and fall of dieting trends – the question of the health club sector’s role in offering people specialist programmes and choices to help weight management is becoming increasingly pertinent.

Weight management and food plans are seemingly coming to the forefront of business trends too, with Weight Watchers purchasing startup virtual coaching company Wello and Tesco's launch of a healthy eating range that works in combination with an online planner.

Speculative interest from businesses is perhaps matched with encouraging statistics too. For example, Dr Mike Loosemore, consultant in sport and exercise medicine at UCL, suggests that people’s chances of changing their behaviour triples if they’re given adequate support.

But what can the health club sector do to get involved with weight management?

One option, suggested by health and wellbeing coach Pete Cohen, centres around working out objectives with clients, establishing what they’re keen to do and then prescribing a diet alongside a support network.

One way of developing a network for members could be based around the use of social media to encourage an online community of people to work together to give advice and provide guidance to help achieve goals.

A number of other tools have been born online. One case in point is Stickk, which asks users to donate money to a charity they don’t agree with if they fail to meet their goals, while Diet Bet pits friends against each other in a bid to lose weight through healthy competition.

Beyond examples laid down by websites, the booming app market has also produced some potential tools to benefit operators and members alike.

In this respect WatchFit has proven to be a successful model, whereby users build up points when they follow the correct aspects of their assigned plan, with points totals measured up against other users in their customised network.

“It’s also a great way for trainers, conditioning experts and sports coaches to keep tabs on clients and ensure they’re following a prescribed plan,” said Parisa Louie, CEO at WatchFit.

Health clubs could soon stand to gain significantly if weight management is given serious consideration by owners, as more opportunities are predicted to be created in the coming years.

“Going forward there will be more commissioning opportunities to run weight management programmes on behalf of public health,” added Lisa Taylor of Momenta, a 12-week course which provides an education into weight management and planning.

“Clubs need to learn the language and train the staff in coaching and facilitation skills. There needs to be an understanding on interventions and behaviour change.”

A full exploration of how health clubs can become more involved with weight management is available in the current edition of Health Club Management magazine, pp. 66-67.