Health Coach
A health coach is a trained professional who supports clients in improving their wellness through behavior change, lifestyle guidence and accountability. Health coaches partner with clients to explore personal goals, strengthen motivation, and co-create realistic action plans that support lasting health and well-being improvements.
What does a health coach do?
A health coach partners with clients to co-create meaningful, lasting change. Health coaches help people understand how their daily choices influence their health, uncover what’s getting in the way, and develop realistic action steps to take. Health coaches support clients in building habits around nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management, and other daily behaviors that influence health.
Health coaches’ scope of practice ensures they don’t diagnose or treat medical conditions, nor do they prescribe medications. They instead focus on helping people follow through on lifestyle changes that support long-term well-being.
How is a functional medicine health coach different from other health coaches?
A functional medicine health coach has mastered core coaching skills, and they are also trained in the principles of functional medicine by functional medicine experts, including IFM faculty, in the Functional Medicine Operating System and the 7 core Functional Medicine nodes.
A functional medicine health coach looks for the root causes of health challenges and recognizes that each person’s health story is unique. At FMCA, coaches learn to support clients as they implement recommendations from healthcare providers, navigate complex health journeys, and make sustainable lifestyle changes. Functional Medicine Health Coaches are especially skilled at helping people translate personalized health plans into daily habits that actually work in real-life using evidence-based approaches such as Motivational Interviewing.
Dive deeper: Why Functional Medicine Health Coaching?