Wellness: a Priority to Build a Better World

Nerio Alessandri, the Wellness Inventor, at WEF

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Jan 25, 2012, 07:00 ET

DAVOS, Switzerland, January 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

This year health and prevention, as key priorities to ensure sustainable social development to the Planet, will be very high among the topics on the World Economic Forum agenda.

Nerio Alessandri, Chairman and Founder of Technogym, is an example of how to create a global successful business and at the same time, take the social responsibility of providing what people really need: health.

In Davos, next to the industrial giants like Coca Cola, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and many others, sits the "little" (by comparison) Technogym. Technogym is among the leading companies of the "Wellness Alliance", not for its size, but because it has been recognized as the inventor of a new social and economic model based on wellness.

At the age of 22, Alessandri designed and built the fist gym equipment in his garage in Cesena, a small town in Italy. At the time, in 1983 "It was a muscle-driven market," says Alessandri, "focused on aesthetics."

In the early nineties, when an all-muscle vision of fitness was taking the world by storm, in Italy, Alessandri launched a totally new vision. He called it "Wellness", a profoundly Italian way of living, dating back to Ancient Rome and based on regular physical exercise, a healthy diet and a positive mental approach. Mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body). By transforming a business based on hedonism into a social business, Alessandri has created a revolution that has moved the focus of fitness from looking good to feeling good and from a small élite of body beautiful fanatics to the entire human population.

Technogym is today a leading company in the Wellness and Fitness field on the ground operating in over 100 countries all over the world, with over 2,000 employees. Official Olympics supplier at London 2012 and, Technogym is a company that has already put its concept of "social business" into action around the globe.

It took years of cultural battles, work and daily commitment but at last Wellness, the true wellbeing of the planet and its inhabitants, is a top priority of governments, big business and a subject which is widely debated at major world-level meetings, from the World Economic Forum in Davos to plenary sessions of the UN.

"Wellness is an over-the-board social opportunity - for governments to reduce health service costs, for companies to stimulate their members to be more creative and productive and for all citizens to improve their health and daily lifestyle," Alessandri clear answer to a critical historical moment when for the first time in the history of our planet obesity sufferers have exceeded the number of malnourished.

http://www.technogym.com

SOURCE Technogym SpA