A new women’s fitness organization has come to campus to inspire girls and motivate them to be healthy.
CHAARG, standing for Changing Health, Attitudes, and Actions to Recreate Girls, is a national organization whose mission is to instill a passion in college-aged women for health and fitness. With 14 chapters at universities nationwide, CHAARG is establishing a new chapter at the University.
“My goal is to bring CHAARG to every university in the United States, if not the world,” said CHAARG founder Elisabeth Tavierne on the CHAARG website. “Ultimately though, my mission is to empower every CHAARG girl to be the best version of herself. I truly hope that all of our members find their passion for health and fitness, whatever that means to them.”
The goal of CHAARG is to create a support system for fellow female students to have a group of women to help have fun new workouts, learn to eat healthy and to create friends that help inspire and motivate females into a healthy lifestyle.
“While CHAARG focuses a lot on fitness, living a healthy life is so much more than the physical aspect; I hope all of our members grow to embrace a healthy and happy lifestyle; I hope that they find a supportive and encouraging community and that they meet not only workout buddies, but lifelong friends,” Tavierne wrote.
CHAARG tries to break the cycle of the same workout routine with women students and to ‘Liberate women from the elliptical.’
CHAARG University chapter ambassador Sammi Frankenburg spoke about how CHAARG can help women ‘find their fit.’
“So many women get used to staying on the elliptical or running and don’t know of the different ways that you can work out,” Frankenburg said. “The mission statement of CHAARG is to ‘liberate girls from the elliptical.’ CHAARG focuses on women finding out different ways of working out and have fun while doing [it].”
CHAARG offers group workouts for CHAARG members with different activities to broaden their fitness perspective, from boxing to yoga, and to find something for every type of girl. This is a way for women to get excited about working out, eating healthy and really changing their lifestyle.
“You don’t have to be perfect and super fit to get involved in this; it’s all about helping girls … find what works best for [them] and really getting into it, and really loving it and making it [their] lifestyle rather than a phase,” Frankenburg said. “CHAARG is flexible and can work with any student’s schedule. Many girls say they don’t have time to work out but with CHAARG it’s possible for everyone.”
CHAARG has been successful at universities like Ohio State and Penn State, and is beginning to spark the interest of fellow University students.
Junior Mel Bracco said she plans on signing up.
“All I do in the Rec is the elliptical and I don’t know how to use the rest of equipment,” Bracco said. “I’m looking forward to learning and switching up my workout routine.”
CHAARG is also setting up support systems through social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to connect with fellow CHAARG members sharing workout routines, healthy recipes and motivational quotes to continue to inspire members and create a strong sense of community.
For more information about CHAARG or to sign up, visit CHAARG.com. The deadline to sign up is Jan. 1.
