From the 8/23/2015 Washington Post article, "In the nation’s capital, a new business to regulate: D.C.’s personal trainers":
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.Personally, I find the idea of an agency deciding "who has the right to tell someone how to exercise" to be deeply disturbing.
The credit — or blame — for the newfound urgency can be traced in part to President Obama’s 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, which could eventually lead to the ability to bill insurance companies for services, much like such professionals as dieticians and physical therapists. With billions of dollars potentially at stake, lawyers and lobbyists are engaged in a no-holds-barred fight to shape the nation’s first-ever rules over who has the right to tell someone else how to exercise.
The article also discusses some of the controversy within the CrossFit community. (I don't do CrossFit, but this part might be interesting to my friends who do.)
