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Coaches trained in the art and science of motivating healthy changes have been the missing link in both healthcare and wellness. The future? They’ll work with more doctors, insurers, employers, physical therapists, fitness trainers, wellness resorts and people independently
The world spends $8.3 trillion a year on healthcare, and $4.4 trillion on wellness, and we still can’t stem the tide of chronic diseases. Behavior change is the toughest. That’s why the most puzzling thing in both healthcare and wellness is that coaches trained specifically in helping people make healthy behavior changes haven’t been at the center of everything. They’re a no-brainer, they’ve been absent, but the certified health and wellness coach (HWC) is finally here. And their rise is a key trend in our The Future of Wellness 2022 report.
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It's a Wild West of wellness coaching: fitness, lifestyle and career coaches are long-established—and now there are even spiritual and “burnout” coaches. “Wellness coach” may be the most over-used noun on earth, especially now that any TikTok influencer can boldly hang up a digital shingle without any credentials. This trend predicts that the future will offer new coaching distinctions, because what a certified health and wellness coach does is something utterly unique; nobody has their skillset.
What do they do? This coach is a healthcare professional trained in evidence-based communication techniques such as motivational interviewing. The coaching experience is a nuanced conversational process that gets people developing the intrinsic motivation and confidence to hit realistic weekly wellbeing goals. And unlike the 15 minutes a doctor gives you, they spend real time with you: around 50 minutes a week for at least 3 months. The science shows that’s when new habits start to stick.
This coaching approach is radically different from the “prescriptive” model that rules both medicine and wellness. Doctors say exercise; wellness gurus say follow me on this exact path to weight loss or enlightenment. These coaches check all advice-dispensing and the guru mentality at the doorbecause the evidence is overwhelming that prescriptive models have failed spectacularly. And the wellness world does need to interrogate its impact on long-term behavior change: Why are wellness devotees always chasing the next diet or influencer?
Health and wellness coaching is grounded in this evidencebased principle: Behavior change gets switched on–and stays on–when it’s motivated from within. And the evidence for this coaching’s impact is growing: one metareview found that it reduces risk factors for heart disease and diabetes and boosts exercise and healthy eating–and that the body of evidence “provides substantial evidence for a coaching clinical intervention.”
