Getting a wellness coach certification can put you on a fast-track for success. According to a study by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), individuals who are “educated and experienced fitness professionals” now constitute the most dynamic fitness trend in the world.

Why is a wellness coach certification in demand? In a word – fat! Yes, Americans are overweight and obese. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 66% of adults are overweight or obese. The CDC also reports that childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years. The only way to cure this epidemic of obesity is through healthy lifestyle habits, including physical activity and healthy eating. This is where the wellness coach comes to the rescue – armed with knowledge and experience and ready to help others find the joy in eating well and living healthy.

How to Create Even More Demand for a Wellness Coach Certification

Though the public has caught on to the benefits of having a wellness coach and the demand will continue to grow as people look for ways to get healthy, there is still a long way to go. To really push the demand for a wellness coaching certification, fitness professionals need doctors to jump on board their bandwagon. Though some doctors and HMOs have begun to use wellness coaches, there is substantial room for growth. Once it becomes common for doctors to refer patients to fitness professionals who can help them change their lifestyle and develop new and healthy habits, the field will experience exponential growth and that coaching certification will be in big demand.

Doctors may initially believe that referring patients to wellness coaches will decrease their business, and in some ways, they may be right. If people get healthy, they won’t need to see their physicians as often as they did before. However, the motivation for most doctors is not money, it is prevention and healing. By referring patients to fitness and health professionals, they will be doing their best to prevent and heal disease. Coaches with a wellness coach certification will be able to reap the benefit of these referrals.

The field of wellness coaching is much like the field of life coaching several years ago. As life coaching exploded, managers, consultants and any number of individuals jumped into the mix and began calling themselves life coaches, even though they lacked any real training. But, the field matured and became more competitive, and training and certification became essential to success in the field.

As the field of wellness coaching grows, coaches will need to be more qualified. Being more qualified means having more training, more experience, more knowledge, and a wellness coach certification. Calling yourself a coach without the training is like knighting yourself with your own sword. Getting the proper training and certification is like having the Queen knight you with a royal sword.

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Fred Philips
Business Coach
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