Credit: Thorpe Park ResortA roller coaster fanatic found himself motivated to lose weight after embarking upon a tour of local theme parks.
The UK’s theme park scene is home to some of Europe’s most thrill-packed options. While Alton Towers boasts the likes of The Smiler, Wicker Man, and Thirteen, Thorpe Park is home to the country’s fastest coaster, Stealth, and the world’s first 10-loop rollercoaster with Colossus.
With so many adrenaline hotspots to explore, it’s unsurprising that the UK is also home to countless coaster enthusiasts. The most enthusiastic of the bunch are part of the Rollercoaster Club of Great Britain – a “social club that unite[s] roller coaster enthusiasts from all over the world who like to add extra FUN into the already fun-packed world of roller coasters.”
It was on one of the Rollercoaster Club’s many theme park trips that one man decided to change his life. Steve Herbert is 46 and lives in Leicestershire. During his tour of the UK’s best parks, he noticed that his weight was making him uncomfortable on rides, and he experienced aches from extensive time on his feet.
Speaking to LeicestershireLive, Herbert said: “I’d always struggled with my weight and at this point I was about 14-and-a-half stone. It wasn’t just the rollercoasters – I found it hard to be on my feet for a long time without my joints aching.”
Motivated by his trip, Herbert lost an incredible three-and-a-half-stone within a year of kickstarting his weight loss journey.
Size inclusivity in theme parks has been a hot topic over the past few months. The opening of Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge led parkgoers to slam Universal Studios Hollywood for its failure to describe more accommodating vehicles. The waist circumference limit for riders is 40 inches, despite the average male waist size in the US sitting at 40.5 inches. Disney also faced criticism for “small seats” on Magic Kingdom’s TRON Lightcycle / Run, with some riders forced to sit in select accessible seats.