Becoming A Health Coach

In today's society, people are becoming more health conscious and wanting to eat more natural and organic foods. Along with this trend in society comes an opportunity for individuals to expand their knowledge and expertise in the area of health coaches and health counselors.

One unique school has opened many exciting doors for its students in the field of health coaches and counselors, and that school is the Institute for Integrative Nutrition located in New York City. The IIN first opened in 1992, and since then has been known as the leader of cutting edge holistic health education. It is the also the largest school of its type in the world.

The Institute of Integrative Nutrition is home to world-renowned experts in nutrition and wellness. In addition to having experts at hand, IIN utilizes a curriculum that combines teaching students about health coaching, nutrition education, business management, and how to make healthy lifestyle choices. The IIN teaches a wide variety of dietary theories and blends traditional nutrition ideologies with the most current health based concepts to keep their students abreast of what is happening in the moment of holistic nutrition.

IIN is made for students of all ages and backgrounds and understands people's needs to complete a comprehensive nutritional program in a short period of time. Due to this understanding, IIN has created a Certified Health Coach Training Program in a succinct manner so that students can become certified after just one year of study through their online program.

Through their online program, students are given a chance to study from anywhere in the world. Once enrolled in the program, IIN issues each of their students a customized iPod that is filled with audio and video classes with holistic health experts. IIN believes in supporting its students from the beginning, so it provides students with an online education forum that allows them to interface with other students, staff, and faculty. They also provide each student with his or her own personal health coach, a previous successful graduate of IIN, to aid in guidance of a personal level.

Within IIN's curriculum they teach a diverse number of courses that focus on health and nutrition. They have courses about bio-individuality that focus on the fact that each individual requires a personalized diet. There are also courses on deconstructing why people have certain food cravings, ideas on food energetics, and food/mood connections. Every course is designed to enlighten and educate on new and traditional nutrition theories.

The Institute of Integrative Nutrition offers a high quality education in health coaching and wellness for an affordable price. The cost of the one-year online program comes in at under $5,000. This includes all materials and books needed for coursework, the ability to begin working with paying clients while completing your coursework, national certification, university certification, and the option to attend a free second year advanced training program.

The Significance of Health Care Education

Before we come to the practice of health care education, we must know the principles involved. Health care education brings together the art and science of medicine along with the principles and practice of general education. The link is to be found in the social and behavioral sciences which include sociology, psychology and social anthropology.

Health care education can not be 'given' to one person by another. It involves, among other things, the teaching, learning and inclusion of habits concerned with the objective of healthy living.

The definition adopted by World Health Organization in 1969 and the Alma Ata declaration adopted in 1978 provide a useful basis for formulating the aims and objectives of health care education that may be described as -

o To promote the proper use of healthcare service available to the general people.

o To encourage them to adopt and maintain health promoting lifestyle and practices.

o To develop interest, endow with newer knowledge, improve skills and change attitudes in making rational decisions to solve their own problems

o To stimulate the individual and community self-reliance and participation to achieve health development through individual and community involvement at every step from identifying problems to solving them.

The educational objectives are aimed to the group to be taught in the health care educational program. The objectives flow from the health needs which have been discovered or invented. They should be carefully and unambiguously defined in terms of knowledge to be acquired, behavior to be to be acquired or actions to be mastered. They must be pertinent if the program is to be appropriate and successful.

The focus of health education is on people and on action. Its goal is to make realistic improvements in the basic quality of life. Many health education programs hope, in some way, to influence behavior or attitudes. The implication of these newer concepts is that health care education is an integral part of the national health goals. The fact remains that effective health education has the potential for saving many lives than has any one research discovery in the foreseeable future.

We all know that 'Prevention is better than cure'. Health care education will bring us the knowledge how we can prevent the disease before it surfaces in any individual. In the US, more than 130 billion dollars are spent last year to treat the patients suffering from diseases. By paying one fifth of the amount, incidence of many fatal diseases can be prevented. The surplus amount can be spent to another developmental work for the society.

Healthcare educating will make the standard of living better. Therefore, the status of a particular society will be lifted up. Better habitation, living, education, trade will make us a better human being. This is particularly important for the developing countries where there is not enough money to spend treating diseases through modern approach. It is always better to spend some money to healthcare education in order to lift the level of health consciousness among the common people.