MaryAnn Jones, ADAPT Certified Functional Health Coach
The Habit Change Health Coach
Health Coaching
What is Health Coaching?
- Health coaches (HCs) specialize in behavior change, they are change agents
- HCs support clients in finding their own strategies and motivation for change
- Provide strategies to overcome obstacles and implement protocols that havebeen prescribed by a clinician or nutritionist/dietitian or that the client has chosen
- HCs empower others to make the choice for health, including healthier behaviors
- Act as accountability partners to help clients reach their health goals
What is Not Health Coaching?
- Lecturing or dispensing advice without thought to individual needs
- Diagnosing conditions, prescribing treatments or providing interventions
How Can Health Coaches Help?
The chronic disease epidemic is spreading, 6 out of 10 adults in the US have a chronic disease, and 4 in 10 have 2 or more conditions. The majority of those chronic illnesses (up to 85%) are caused by diet, lifestyle and behavior—not genetic!
- HCs inspire people to change lifestyle behaviors which has the potential to prevent and reverse chronic disease
- Inspire self-care (self care IS health care)
Research Shows Us That Change Is Difficult
Only 6% of Americans engage in the top 5 health behaviors:
- Not smoking
- Maintaining a healthy BMI
- Not drinking to excess
- Doing 30+ minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity a day
- Eating a relatively healthy diet
- HCs work directly with clients to support them as they embrace a healthy lifestyle
- HCs can support and improve a patient’s adherence to the treatment plan
- HCs can act as a liaison between the clinician and the patient
How Effective Is Health Coaching?
Extremely! Health coaching has been shown to:
- Improve weight loss and help people maintain a lower weight for longer
- Lead to faster reduction of blood sugar levels in diabetic patients
- Lower total cholesterol levels in people with coronary heart disease
- Lessen feelings of depression and improve overall quality of life
- Encourage people to stick with the changes they’ve made long term
