Financial Times

Unusual business
A special gym exclusively for women and families
By Quintus Perera
Anton Croos Dabarera of Negombo, in the food and beverages industry for the last 25 years, has come up with a rather novel investment and a service to the community to be an entrepreneur to help people maintain healthy lifestyles, specially women and children.

Along with his wife Sheron, he invested Rs. 10 million and opened a gymnasium "Well Woman" in Negombo. The spacious 3,000-sq foot facility is exclusively for women and families only. No individual males are allowed as members.

Dabarera has worked as food and beverages manager in several five star hotels in Sri Lanka and also abroad for several years. During this time he learnt much about how excess food leads to obesity.

He said that the most common treatment for obesity is a nutritionally balanced, low calorie diet but the caloric restriction alone would not produce long-term weight loss. While the data from studies on the effect of exercise for short-term weight loss are contradictory, he said that research clearly indicates that regular exercise is the best remedy towards achieving long-term weight control.

He says that though there are many gyms some are conducted without proper medical or physiotherapists advice. The most common drawback in some of these gyms is that male-female combination discourages parents from sending their daughters or wives to these gyms.

Dabarera's gym includes, a spa, steam room in addition to aerobics, stretch and tone, yoga, group exercise classes every hour, personal training, karate for ladies and kids, and social dancing.

He plans to leave for Australia shortly to continue his present job as the personal assistant to one of the richest persons in Australia and maintain his luxury yacht. In his absence the entire responsibility of managing the gym would be on the shoulders of Sharon who too is a qualified trainer.

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