Is it time to regulate personal trainers?

Can you guess my answer to that question?  But it does seem to be coming:

After decades of unregulated existence in all 50 states, the booming field of personal trainers is braced for a wave of scrutiny that is expected to transform the industry and could make or break some of the biggest fitness companies in the country.

The new regulations, being written by and for the nation’s capital city, will create a registry of all personal trainers in the District only. But they are expected to become a model that winners and losers in the fight believe will be replicated elsewhere.

The credit or blame, as you may care to describe it, goes to the Affordable Care Act:

A variety of workplace wellness programs and preventive health-care initiatives called for in the law could soon translate into rivers of billable hours for those with credentials to keep American waistlines in check.

And that means the race is on to be eligible for those credentials…

I believe the excess bureaucratization of the ACA is just beginning to show all of its implications…

The story is by Aaron C. Davis.  And the article is sad throughout:

“We all have heard anecdotal reports of injuries, sexual misconduct and misrepresentation of titles by persons claiming to be competent in that area,” Simpson testified before a D.C. Council committee. She called the lack of any registration or licensure of personal trainers “a nationwide failure.”

Well, that is one “failure” we seem to be on the verge of remedying…