Local marketing professional Elise Sinclair is set to launch a new social enterprise to make fitness inclusive, non-competitive and accessible for women and girls – or, as she puts it, just ‘For Funsies’.
“For Funsies is a fitness option where you can participate literally just for fun – just to get your movement in with no pressure,” Elise said.
“Traditional sports and fitness environments aren’t always created with females in mind. A lot of sports and gyms have expanded their initiatives to include women’s competitions, but they’re still rooted in achievement and competition, which can be intimidating.”
Her idea is that For Funsies will offer 10-week seasons in line with NSW school terms, with no nerve-racking competition, try-outs or pressure to perform. Memberships would be through a tier-based system offering flexibility to suit individual needs.
Elise was recently awarded a Female Founder Scholarship as part of the first Activate Anywhere program at iAccelerate, the startup accelerator and incubator run out of the University of Wollongong.
“At the moment, I’m really just trying to create some hype around the concept, working on the pilot season,” she said.
“We want it to be super inclusive because people who are neurodiverse or have mental health problems may not feel safe or comfortable in those traditional health/fitness environments.”
Elise studied at UOW then went straight into a corporate career. But once she started working, she struggled to find flexible, inclusive and accessible options for exercise. This is consistent with national data, which shows a decline in physical activity for women as they age.
“I’ve tried everything – looking for competitions that fit what I was looking for, and trying to find the motivation to go to the gym at the end of a long workday when you’re mentally exhausted… it just doesn’t work for women,” she said.
Data from The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare suggests that women face challenges in staying fit as they age. In adulthood, 41 percent of Australian women are insufficiently active, compared with 34 percent of men.
“It’s important for women to have access to physical exercise and social interaction if we want to be moving toward a more equal, equitable world,” Elise said.
“A lot of the time, women have more to take on day-to-day. There is still a huge gap when it comes to taking care of domestic labour, and that applies whether you are super family-focused or super career-focused – because in both of those demographics it’s still extremely important to take care of your physical health.
“When I first had the idea, I wanted to test it within the Illawarra market. So I put out a survey to females in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven regions, really trying to understand what impacted them when it came to making the decision to participate or not.”
Her survey identified barriers to women’s involvement in sport and physical activity, such as feeling pressure to perform and compete, an intimidating gym and fitness culture, lack of time due to work and life responsibilities, cost and inflexibility, safety concerns, exclusive environments, and bureaucratic hassles with sport sign-ups.
“I myself can relate to a lot of the barriers that women and girls face when they want to enter traditional sporting programs and environments. We understand that there can be a lot of gym intimidation, it’s not exactly comfortable. Traditional sporting options can be just as intimidating because people are more focused on skills and competition,” Elise said.
The For Funsies Foundation aims to reduce barriers to participation in sport for young women aged 12 to 28. In future, Elise wishes to offer scholarships through the program, lending an encouraging hand to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“I’m very focused on having a social impact as part of the initiative. We’ll be partnering with local [high] schools because that's when female sports participation decreases the most, and then continues to drop throughout your whole life basically,” Elise said.
“That’s what the social enterprise model will be all about – creating that real social impact for women and young girls to do what they’d like to do while keeping fit and having fun at the same time. That’s the goal!”
Elise also hopes to capitalise on a trend towards encouraging holistic health care.
“There is a huge movement at the moment towards social prescribing – where doctors and mental health professionals are prescribing social initiatives for patients to engage in, and better their mental health,” Elise said.
“That can be everything from horse riding to gardening, and it’s seen some really positive results overseas. For Funsies could fit really well into that.”
Learn more about For Funsies and register an expression of interest via the website. For Funsies is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
