What is a Certified Holistic Health Coach?

*photo by Jason Briscoe

What is a certified holistic health coach? Well, that’s not a straightforward question to answer. Health coaching is a growing field that’s a fairly new trend in the wellness industry. And yet the idea of healing through diet and lifestyle is an ancient idea in many cultures.

As of 2018, health coaching was a 6 billion dollar service market with a strong growth outlook. However, because it’s growing so quickly, it can also be loosely defined and without national standards on certification.

If you’re thinking of moving into this field or have a calling for helping others through diet and lifestyle, here’s what you need to know about it.

What is a Certified Holistic Health Coach?

There are 2 main components that will help you understand what holistic health coaches do.

Firstly, look at health coaches, who help people identify health goals and work with them to design an eating program that addresses them.

And then you add in the holistic part, which means that a holistic health coach can do this for every aspect of someone’s life. Holistic health coaches work on improving health through diet and lifestyle changes. They use an integrative approach, which means they look at and address the physical, social, cognitive, behavioral, spiritual, energetic and affective aspects of your life. 

This sounds fairly complex, but it isn’t. It’s an individual process that can include:

• Nutrition education and coaching

• Identification of dangerous habits and lifestyle choices

• A whole-body health assessment

• Diet and lifestyle education

 A holistic health coach works with people to identify poor lifestyle choices, goals to overcome them, and a plan to meet those goals. They empower people to make real change, whether that’s dietary, environment, activity or any other area that’s negatively affecting an individual’s health.

A health coach may also offer counseling, talk therapy, meal plans, or other wellness methods like Reiki.

How is a Health Coach Different to a Doctor?

Doctors have specific focuses in conventional Western medicine. They tend to focus on providing solutions for acute illness. This is obviously vital work. But it ignores how much damage chronic illnesses are doing in the modern world.

Chronic illnesses are usually ongoing and seemingly incurable. They directly affect more than 15 million people in the UK and management of these conditions costs around 70 percent of the health budget in England. 

These are obviously frightening statistics. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the risk of developing the most common and dangerous chronic diseases could be reduced by 80% through diet and lifestyle. And yet doctors spend little to no time studying nutrition or other lifestyle practices related to chronic illness.

This problem is compounded by the fact that doctors are generally extremely busy. In fact, you’ve probably noticed this yourself during your 15-minute appointments. They often don’t give you much time to get the personalized, in-depth information you need to improve your lifestyle.

This is where certified holistic health coaches come in. They aren’t competition for traditional medicine. Instead they fill in the gaps and can help people create a diet and lifestyle that leads to lasting, sustainable health.

Isn’t a Doctor Safer?

Going to a doctor is reassuring. You can be sure that they have the medical knowledge to help you (theoretically) without causing further damage. Of course, that isn’t always true. Today’s medications and therapies can have lasting and detrimental effects on every aspect of your health. This problem doesn’t apply when someone visits a certified holistic health coach.

Health coaches don’t and can’t prescribe medications and they don’t (and never should) perform potentially dangerous procedures or operations. Basically, the risk of serious side effects or problems is very low for a holistic health coach.

Instead, as a coach, you will look at people’s diet and lifestyle and make improvement suggestions. You will empower, inspire and improve lives through natural changes in lifestyle and habit.

*photo by Sebastian Coman Photography

What can a Certified Health Coach Do?

Certified holistic health coaches can work in a huge range of industries, environments and roles. They can:

• Launch a coaching business

• Work in a restaurant as a chef

• Be a private chef for health-conscious clients

• Create holistic health content

• Work with sports teams at colleges or higher levels

• Be part of weight-loss programs

• Work with big corporations on employee health

• Offer wellness services at spas, gyms and wellness centers

• Help professional and amateur athletes at training centers with health, stress and recovery

• Open their own holistic health center

Truthfully, since holistic health coaching and wellness are newer, creative industries—the sky is the limit on what a holistic health coach can “do” with their training.

Health Coach Certifications

There is no set certification that makes someone a holistic health coach. Instead, there are lots of offerings, many of them of dubious quality.

If you want to move into this field, it’s vitally important that you get high quality training that will give you the skills and knowledge to make a real difference in people’s lives.

Some of the skills and subjects that can be part of a health coaching certification include:

∙ Communication and coaching skills

∙ Nutrition and diet

∙ Mind/body techniques

∙ How to perform and understand health assessments

∙ Some basic skills for running a health coaching business

∙ Sports and fitness

∙ Stress management

∙ Basic anatomy and physiology

When you’re looking at how to become a certified holistic health coach, you’ll find a range of companies and institutions offering certifications. These include some universities like the University of Delaware and Duke Integrative Medicine, or private institutions like the Academy Healing Nutrition.

Each of these courses are different and each offers their own benefits. The key is to look for a course that suits your needs. Here’s what to look for when choosing your health coaching certification:

∙ Accreditation by a body like the American Association of Drugless Practitioners (AADP)

∙ A program that’s long enough to give you a proper grounding in the topic

∙ Teachers who are well-established in their fields of study, respected for their work, and with whom you feel excited to learn from

∙ Hands-on experience, if possible (rather than just a completely online certification)

∙ Training that fits with your individual beliefs on wellness and holistic medicine

∙ The structure of the course and whether it will fit with your schedule

∙ Good testimonials from previous students

∙ Practice coaching sessions so you can apply all that you’re learning

∙ A holistic approach that looks at all the aspects of health and wellbeing

∙ A practical approach that teaches you the skills you need to use the theories you learn

∙ Training that has been long-established but still changes regularly as new health information is uncovered

Coaches in the US vs. the UK

The US has a slightly more established health coaching industry, which is why you’ll find more information online about how to be a health coach in the US. Most of the schools offering the training courses are also located in the US but can be completed internationally on online platforms.

Health coaching is growing rapidly in the UK and around the world. This is a little surprising. After all, UK residents can get free health services through the NHS. However, this hasn’t diminished the need for health coaches. The NHS mainly focuses on medical treatments and also has a strict 15 min time per patient. It isn’t focused on helping people make diet and lifestyle changes. This creates an obvious gap that holistic health coaches can and are filling.

---

*photo by Mike Von

The Takeaway

What is a certified holistic health coach? Well, there’s no one generally accepted answer. The field of health coaching is fairly new, so there aren’t specific guidelines on what experience or qualifications coaches should have.

That’s why you need to be careful when choosing your training provider. Look for a course that has stood the test of time, testimonials from past students, and a teaching style and curriculum that suits your personality and time restraints. And don’t be afraid to examine lots of options until you find a program or person who clicks with you.

At the Academy Healing Nutrition, our 35-year old curriculum combines the secrets of cultures of longevity such as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda with cutting-edge scientific research. Our classes are held both in-person online, and offer hands-on cooking classes, fascinating lectures from expert teachers, and a Chinatown and farmer’s market tour to source the best herbs and high-quality seasonal ingredients. Beyond just holistic nutrition education, we also teach various forms of healing including QiGong, Shiatsu, and Barefoot Doctor techniques. For health coaches who want to help people truly transform their lives based on time-tested longevity practices, this course is an unbeatable combination.