Former Vogue and Wheels staffers join the line up for fitness chain Fitness First’s in-house publication.
Sigourney Cantelo is the former beauty editor of Vogue, while Phil Scott is a former Wheels editor who was boss of Australian Consolidated Press before leaving when Bauer bought the company.
They join nutritionist and chef Zoe Bingley-Pullin, the co-star of Good Chef Bad Chef on Ten, in a plan to make Fitness First magazine the most credible and authoritative fitness and health lifestyle publication in Australia.
AMG creates the glossy print mag for Fitness First clubs but also makes it available to everybody via its award-winning iPad edition on Apple’s Newsstand. The custom publisher has massively revamped the magazine in recent months and has also introduced an original, evidence-based approach to fitness and health coverage that relies on using only the most credible information sources.
AMG publisher Michael Ryan says the big names and editorial stance will make Fitness First magazine an agenda-setter in the fitness and health trend that’s sweeping the country and the world.
Taking over as the new beauty expert for Fitness First mag, Cantelo will give readers beauty coverage to match that of the top women’s newsstand magazines. A multi-award winning writer, Cantelo was most recently the Beauty and Health Director at Vogue Australia, a role she held for over five years, and has also worked on Glamour and New Woman Magazine.
Cantelo’s philosophy on beauty meshes perfectly with the Fitness First magazine ethos of looking good by being healthy and fit. She believes that now, more than ever, beauty, health and fitness are innately intertwined.
“Everything we eat, drink and apply to our skin has a direct impact on how we look and feel about ourselves,” she says. “Exercise is one of the most beautifying pastimes around – that weekly or daily date we have with ourselves is so important for self-confidence, to get our body in optimum balance and even just to get that enviable glow.”
Although Phil Scott is busy with his Angus beef cattle farm south of Sydney, the former boss of ACP couldn’t resist having fun testing some of the most interesting cars for Fitness First magazine, just as he did for big selling newspapers like the Sun Herald and Sydney Morning Herald.
Fitness First mag’s demographic of 25-49 year olds who like to spend money on getting fit and living a healthy lifestyle gives Scott an audience interested in cars in the mid to luxury and sports segments. It suits Scott perfectly because the main reason he’s back reviewing is his love of advanced technology, typically introduced first in the sports and luxury brackets.
Phil says he’s enjoying reviewing cars again and believes the Active Media Group publishing model is the right one for the future, combining the best of print with innovative digital and video production.
“I’m only interested in doing a limited amount of high quality work for high quality audiences these days and the Fitness First media approach aligns perfectly with how I see the world. It delivers a big, influential audience at the peak of their buying power plus I have huge respect for the team and its attitude to production values and editorial independence.”
New food editor Zoe Bingley-Pullin is a rare combination of qualified nutritionist and cordon blue chef, who ensures the recipes featured in the mag are not the tedious, fad-driven healthy fare found in many health mags, but true gourmet food as well.
Bingley-Pullin, who is in her third year with Good Chef Bad Chef, says of her magazine role: “When I was approached to do this, I was incredibly excited at the prospect of pulling all my knowledge and resources and translating them into something people could learn from; my knowledge as a nutritionist, as a chef and as a health professional.”
She is passionate about people feeling healthy, not just looking healthy. “My view is that a life peppered with a little bit of indulging is completely fine, as long as it’s coming from a really good stock!”
