Check out the latest teen hangout. How cool is this!!

Latest teen hangout:
the nearest gym
High school students find perfect combination of fitness and flirtation

GYM HANGOUTS

Kamil Broda, 17, (behind gate) chats with Kellie Cristofaro,18, and Kelsey Bratanch, 17, (front) at Pavillion Fitness in Elk Grove Village. (Tribune photo by Terry Harris / March 20, 2008)

By Megan Twohey Chicago Tribune reporter

Gaggles of teenage girls rounded the indoor track engrossed in conversation while boys in baggy shorts swarmed on a basketball court below. In a nearby weight room, other young males cracked jokes while strutting among the machines.

As he took a break from a triceps machine, JP O'Connor, a 17-year-old in a sleeveless T-shirt, said that for many teens local health clubs like Pavilion Fitness in Elk Grove Village have become social gathering spots.

"The gym is like the mall," he said. "It's where everyone likes to hang out."

It used to be that the only teens seen at a gym were students on athletic teams, intent on additional training.

But in recent years, some Chicago-area gyms have become preferred hangouts for a growing number of high school students who want to be fit and healthy. Many also have discovered that gyms provide something equally important: a place to gossip, flirt and socialize with peers.

The teenage presence is being felt at places like Pavilion Fitness, Lifetime Fitness in Skokie and Five Seasons in Burr Ridge.

"Sometimes we have to break them up," said Joe Algana, a manager at Pavilion Fitness, where the number of high school-age members has jumped to 360 from 210 in the past two years, most of them from Elk Grove and Conant High Schools. "They're using it more like a social gathering than a gym."

Even with its schmoozing aspects, health experts see it as a positive trend for the MySpace generation, which has been plagued by childhood obesity. Between 1987 and 2006, the number of people under 18 who belonged to health clubs grew to 4.1 million from 1.4 million, according to the International Health Racquet and Sportsclub Association, which has nearly 9,000 members nationwide. Many Chicago-area gyms report similar spikes, especially within the past couple of years.

"Even if it takes a health club being a social entity to get them there, it's great news," said Joel Press, associate professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and a medical director at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. "A lot of the health-care costs are because of problems associated with obesity. If you can get kids exercising as part of their lifestyle, it will be beneficial to society as a whole."

In the 1980s, most people who belonged to a gym were bodybuilders, said Rosemary Lavery, spokeswoman for the International Health Racquet and Sportsclub Association. It was rare to see an average person, let alone an average teen, using a weight machine, she said.

That began to change in the 1990s. In an effort to increase membership, gyms began marketing themselves as wellness centers that could serve everyone, not just the pumping-iron set. Studies showing the health benefits of exercise and the risks of obesity helped draw in a variety of people.

Meanwhile, as childhood obesity grew, health and fitness became a hot topic in schools.

"We hear a lot about obesity in health class," said Katie Lullo, 16, who works out at Pavilion Fitness three or four days a week. "I don't want to be like that."

Many teens want to look fit and strong even if they do not participate in sports, said O'Connor, a student at Elk Grove High School.

"I want to be able to take my shirt off at the beach and feel good," he said as he resumed working his triceps.

There's a ripple effect. When teens sign up, their friends follow. Before long, the gym is known as a place to mingle and be seen. At school, students discuss what time they are going.

"It's like it's the cool, social thing to do," said Dawn Hanson, fitness director of Five Seasons in Burr Ridge, where the number of teen members has doubled since 2001. "They come in with friends and hang out in groups."

Ryan Ring, 16, a Loyola Academy student who was lifting weights with a friend at Lifetime Fitness in Skokie, said he enjoys encountering classmates and other students from Glenbrook South, Evanston Township and New Trier high schools while at the gym.

Sydney Levin, a New Trier freshman who works out at Lifetime, said she sees it as "multi-tasking."

"I want to lead a healthy lifestyle and look good," she said. "And there are also really hot guys here who are fun to flirt with."

The boys tend to congregate in the free-weight areas and basketball courts, while the girls stick to treadmills and other cardiovascular machines, but there are plenty of opportunities to cross paths, Levin said. It's not unusual for her to make eye contact with boys as they pass by a machine.

"They'll smile and say, 'What's up?' " she said. "And I'll be like, 'Hey, what's up?' "