We all have a variety of coaches throughout our lives—soccer coaches, career coaches, and others, for example. Coaches can serve a vital purpose, not only helping teach us how to do things, but also keeping us accountable and on track towards reaching specific goals.
But when it comes to our health—perhaps the most important part of our lives—most people chalk up an annual visit to their doctor, and maybe some sessions with a personal trainer, as “good enough.”
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That’s where a health coach may come into play. Health coaches pick up the baton, so to speak, when you leave the doctor’s office, and help individuals set, work toward, and ultimately achieve health-related goals.
And if you’ve never heard of health coaches before, you likely will—because it’s a growing field providing opportunities not only to improve health outcomes, but offering new career tracks for prospective health coaches, too.
What is a health coach?
A health coach is just that: A coach who helps individuals work toward health-related goals and outcomes. For example, if someone had a goal of losing weight and lowering their cholesterol, they might consider hiring or working with a health coach to help them reach those goals.
A health coach can help people set goals, devise a plan that can help them achieve their goals, and, ultimately, promote a positive change in behavior that lasts for the rest of their lives. In fact, health coaches describe themselves as behavior-change specialists, in many cases.
“We’re behavior and mindset change experts,” says Dr. Cherie O’Neill, Director of Integrative Health and Wellbeing Coaching Programs in the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota. “We co-create a space for people to make behavior and mindset changes in a non-judgmental environment,” she says, and health coaches often work with people one-on-one, and sometimes in a group setting.
In effect, a health coach picks up the baton where a doctor leaves off; if you were to visit your doctor and be told that you need to lose weight, you’re pretty much on your own after you leave the doctor’s office to come up with a plan to do so. That’s where a health coach comes in: They “provide support for people trying to make behavior changes,” “O’Neill says.
Health coaches can also specialize in any number of health-related areas or issues. Many, and perhaps most, specialize in weight loss. Others may specialize in working with specific groups such as senior citizens, or people with specific health issues, like diabetes.
This is a growing field, which means there will likely be an abundance of career opportunities for health coaches in the years ahead. Data from Providence Research shows that the global health coach market was valued at $15.44 billion in 2022, and is expected to grow to more than $29 billion by 2032—nearly doubling in size in the next eight years. Earnings can be attractive, too, as the average health coach makes more than $23 per hour, according to data from Payscale.
How to become a health coach
Becoming a health coach is a relatively simple process, especially compared to other professions in the medical field. While it’s important to note that health coaches are not doctors or nurses, they do (and probably will) play a bigger and more important role in the healthcare sector.
With that in mind, health coaching is still an evolving field, and one that is still young. “In 2015, we launched the approval and training standards,” says Leigh-Ann Webster, Executive Director for the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBWHC). Passing that exam is generally the final step in becoming a health coach—and the first step is making sure you have the necessary prerequisites to sign up for a training program.
1. Knock out the pre-reqs
There are two primary prerequisites to sign up for a health coach training program: Have some work experience, or hold an associate’s degree. “The baseline is that you need either an associate’s degree, or 4,000 hours in any job,” says O’Neill. Given that those prerequisites are broad—several thousand hours working in any field, along with an associate’s (or higher) degree in any discipline—many people likely already qualify for a training program.
2. Find an NBWHC-approved training program
Those who qualify will need to find a training program, and one that is approved by the NBWHC, and meets its standards. Programs vary in terms of cost and time commitment, and some are offered online and others in person. Webster says that as of early 2024, there are 127 approved training and education programs nationwide, and many of them are at established, traditional universities and colleges—like the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University—while others are offered through private organizations like Precision Nutrition or Headspace.
The NBHWC offers a tool to help prospective students search and find programs, too.
3. Go through the program and gain experience
The next step is to enroll and work through the program, the length of which will, again, will depend on several factors. It’s reasonable to assume, though, that students could work through the program in less than a year. O’Neill says that there’s also a skill assessment that students need to pass in order to graduate—and that it’s “not easy.”
That assessment includes working with clients, and then rewatching the footage with an instructor to determine whether you pass or fail. Additionally, earning the National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) designation from the NBHWC requires getting some professional experience. Students will need to complete at least 50 sessions (20 minutes each, minimum) with clients.
4. Sit for and pass the national board exam
Finally, students need to pass the NBC-HWC certifying exam. “The board certification exam is delivered three times per year, and that results in a credential,” says Webster. “To date, we have board-certified over 10,000 people,” she says, but warns that it’s not a cakewalk. “Roughly 20% of people who sit for the exam do not pass,” she says.
The takeaway
Health coaching may be relatively new, but it’s primed to become more common—which may be a good thing for patients or clients who may be interested in a health coach’s services, and for those who may be interested in pursuing a health coach designation and a career in the field. Again, the steps to becoming a health coach are fairly simple—if you meet the necessary criteria, it’s more or less a matter of going through a training program, getting some experience, and then passing an exam.
Again, that’s not to say that it’s easy. But at the end of the road, becoming a health coach can lead to a fruitful and rewarding career, and one that can help create positive change in many people’s lives.
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