If there’s one thing the looming pandemic has taught us, it’s that optimising your overall health is crucial. That way, when the next global virus is upon us (because, trust us; there will be another one), your immune system will be well-equipped to disarm the threat rather than deal with other existing health issues that might bubble up.Â
If your immune system is an army – one that fights off invaders with ease – you fuel its soldiers with immune-supporting agents, like nutritious food, herbs, and supplements. That’s why when it comes to COVID-19 (and all other future pandemics for that matter), nutrition is paramount.
We need to start making nutrition a priority, not just now, but for the long haul. And that’s where health coaches come into play.
Why The World Needs More Health Coaches Right Now
Did you know that 1 in 3 Americans have prediabetes (higher than normal blood sugar that usually means you’re on the fast track to developing type 2 diabetes), but more than 84% of those people don’t even know it? (Two million Australians have pre-diabetes and are at high-risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Ed.)
Were you aware that only 12.2% of Americans are metabolically healthy, meaning 88% of people—if not more—experience silent metabolic dysfunction, which slowly brews in your body until it manifests as chronic disease (or in the case of COVID, a severe infection)?
That’s not to scare you into a pathology mentality, but it does emphasise the importance of becoming more in-tune with your own body.
Learning all the subtle signs it’s desperately trying to tell you means you can approach any underlying conditions before a global health crisis does it for you.
It turns out, one powerful way to approach these silent, chronic conditions is through food and nutrition.
As preventive medicine specialist David Katz, M.D., previously told us about COVID and nutrition: “The greatest single influence of whether you develop a bad chronic disease or die prematurely is your diet quality. Diet is constantly, universally important. Literature showing that it is the single leading predictor of all-cause mortality is incontrovertible.”
As a health coach, you learn what foods work for your body (read: not all diets work for everyone!) and how to optimise your personal wellbeing and immunity through nutrition.
Not only training to be a health coach help you become more aligned with your own body’s needs, it can also help support others with their nutrition goals.
The staggering statistics above show that when it comes to health and well-being, the standard Western way of living (and eating) is not sustainable. However, real, long-lasting change starts with education. Optimising your own health is a first and crucial step, but it’s only half the battle; to truly enhance the health of your country (and beyond), it takes a societal shift.
And let’s not forget about the mental toll this pandemic has taken on society. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in 4 young adults (ages 18 to 24) seriously contemplated suicide during the pandemic, with millennials (those born from 1981 to 1996) and Gen Z (born in 1997 and onward) among the most likely to say their mental health has significantly declined.
Health coaches look at holistic wellbeing, where optimising mental health is just as important as a balanced dinner plate. The bottom line? We need to lend support – of all kinds – to society, and we need to do it together.
It’s high time we approach COVID-19 from a lifestyle perspective specifically, eating a more nutritional diet to foster stronger metabolic health. As a health coach, you can become a go-to source for all things food and nutrition. Not only will this knowledge help support your own health and wellbeing, it will also give you the tools to enhance our collective immune resilience.
