Home What is Health Coaching?
What is a Health Coach?
Everything you need to know about Health Coaching in one place
Health is the foundation of a fulfilling life. Professional Health Coaches are trained in the latest lifestyle medicine and behaviour change techniques, helping you make lasting lifestyle changes to improve both your physical and mental wellbeing. Unlike traditional healthcare, which is reactive and focuses on treating symptoms, Health Coaches work alongside you to help you take control of your health. They provide support, guidance, and accountability, empowering and encouraging you to find your own path to wellness.
Navigating the road to good health can be challenging even when you know what you should do, putting it into practice can feel impossible. Health Coaches bridge this gap by guiding, educating and empowering you with personalised support, making the journey more achievable and sustainable.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “Give a person a fish, and you feed them for a day. Teach them to fish, and they’re set for life.”
That’s the role of a Health Coach, they don’t just provide solutions, they help you forge your own path to better health and build skills that last a lifetime.
Why do we need Health Coaches?
Our healthcare system is designed to treat illness, not prevent it. While we’ve made huge advances in medicine, rates of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and mental health conditions continue to rise. More than 70% of deaths are linked to preventable chronic disease, yet most healthcare training focuses on managing symptoms rather than addressing the root causes.
This is the missing gap – prevention and sustainable lifestyle change.
Health Coaches help fill this gap by guiding people to make real, lasting changes in how they eat, move, sleep, and manage stress. Rather than prescribing quick fixes, they equip people with the tools, knowledge, and support to take control of their own health.
By shifting the focus from reactive treatment to proactive prevention, Health Coaches are helping to reshape healthcare, reducing the burden of chronic disease and improving long-term health outcomes.
How Do Health Coaches Help?
Despite medical advancements, many New Zealanders face a growing gap between lifespan and healthspan – the years lived in good health.
According to the 2022/23 New Zealand Health Survey, approximately 32.6% of adults were classified as obese. Additionally, in the 2021–23 period, about 34.8% of adults reported experiencing mild or greater anxiety and/or depression symptoms in the past two weeks, up from 25.0% in 2016/17.
These conditions not only affect individual quality of life but also place significant strain on families, workplaces, and the healthcare system.
The challenge often lies not in a lack of knowledge but in implementing and maintaining meaningful lifestyle changes.
This is where Health Coaches play a pivotal role. They work alongside clients, offering the tools, support, and accountability necessary to bridge the gap between lifespan and healthspan – helping individuals not just live longer, but live healthier lives.
What Does a Health Coach Do?
Rather than just treating symptoms, Health Coaches address the root causes of health issues, guiding clients toward healthier choices that fit into their lives. Health Coaches don’t treat symptoms, they support clients to identify and address the root causes of health issues…
A Different Approach to Health
Unlike traditional healthcare, where the practitioner is the expert who prescribes solutions, Health Coaches empower clients to take ownership of their health. They use evidence-based coaching techniques to help clients identify what truly matters to them, making lifestyle changes more meaningful and sustainable.
This partnership approach connects with clients’ emotions and values – key drivers of lasting behaviour change. By focusing on both physical and mental wellbeing, Health Coaches help people feel healthier, happier, and more in control of their health journey.
Health Coaches focus on prevention and long-term health, not quick fixes. They help clients:
- Set realistic health goals – Based on each person’s unique needs and lifestyle
- Create personalised action plans – Small, achievable steps for lasting change
- Overcome challenges – Identifying what holds someone back and how to move forward
- Stay motivated and accountable – Providing ongoing support to maintain progress
- Build lifelong habits – Focusing on sustainable improvements, not short-term results
- Bridge the gap between science and practice – Enable clients to practically embed evidence-based strategies and tools to support health
Where Do Health Coaches Work?
Health Coaches work in all sorts of environments, across industries. Here are three broad categories of where and how Health Coaches work:
Healthcare & Allied Health
Health Coaches work alongside doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, helping patients implement lifestyle changes that prevent and manage chronic diseases.
They are becoming an integral part of GP clinics, integrative health practices, and mental health services, bridging the gap between medical advice and real-life action.
Expanding Your Scope of Practice
As a PT, Physio, Midwife, Nurse, Counsellor, or Naturopath, health coaching can expand your scope of practice.
Take a look at the journeys, personal growth, and career pathways of some of our PREKURE Health Coach graduates and the positive impact they are making on the lives of others through the power of health coaching and preventative lifestyle medicine – Success Stories.
Private Practice & Entrepreneurship
Many Health Coaches start their own businesses, working with clients 1:1 or in groups. They may specialise in areas like mental fitness, metabolic health, or menopause coaching, or offer wellness retreats, online courses, and fitness collaborations.
With the rise of digital health, coaches can now work with clients locally or globally.
How is Health Coaching Different?
Health coaching is an emerging field that fills a critical gap in healthcare. While doctors, nurses and personal trainers each play important roles in supporting health and wellbeing, Health Coaches are specialists in behaviour change – helping people take action to prevent disease and improve long-term health.
Traditional healthcare is often fragmented, with patients passing through the hands of multiple health professionals. Health Coaches provide continuity, acting as a consistent thread throughout a client’s health journey. Unlike a one-time consultation or short-term intervention, a Health Coach offers ongoing support, guidance, and accountability – helping clients bridge the gap between medical advice and real-life application.
While doctors diagnose and treat illness, many chronic diseases are lifestyle-related and preventable through lifestyle. However, most healthcare professionals don’t have the time or training to provide sustained, personalised support for long-term lifestyle change. This is where Health Coaches step in – working alongside healthcare providers to empower people to take control of their own health and build habits that last a lifetime.
Health Coaching vs. Personal Training
Personal Trainers focus on exercise and fitness, designing workout programmes to improve physical performance. While movement is important, true health goes beyond the gym. Health Coaches take a whole-person approach, addressing nutrition, sleep, stress, and long-term habits to help people improve their overall wellbeing. Many Personal Trainers are expanding into health coaching to provide a more comprehensive service for their clients.
Health Coaching vs. Life Coaching
Life Coaches help people with career goals, relationships, and personal development, guiding them toward a more fulfilling life. While Health Coaches also use coaching techniques to support growth, their expertise is in health and lifestyle change. They provide evidence-based strategies for improving physical and mental health, helping clients make changes that prevent disease and enhance quality of life.
Bridging the Gap
Health Coaches don’t replace doctors, dietitians, or therapists. Instead, they fill the gap between medical advice and real-life action – guiding people to change the lifestyle drivers of health and chronic illness.
As healthcare shifts toward prevention and personalised care, Health Coaches are leading the way – helping people live longer, healthier, and happier lives.
WHAT SORT OF COACH COULD YOU BE?
Discover Your Health Coach Profile
• Your unique coaching style
• Your readiness to become a coach
• Your strengths + gaps to bridge
Would I Make a Good Health Coach?
Health Coaches come from all walks of life, but they share a common goal: helping people improve their health and live better lives. Whether you’ve experienced your own health transformation, love learning about nutrition and wellbeing, or feel called to make a difference in people’s lives, health coaching offers a rewarding and purpose-driven career.
You don’t need to be a doctor, dietitian, or have previous experience in healthcare to become a Health Coach – you just need a passion for health, a desire to help others, and the right training. Some Health Coaches come from healthcare backgrounds, like nursing, physiotherapy, or general practice, and want to expand their skills in lifestyle medicine. Others come from completely different careers but feel drawn to health and wellbeing. No matter your starting point, health coaching provides the knowledge and tools to help people make lasting lifestyle changes.
You might make a great Health Coach if you:
- Love helping people – You enjoy listening, supporting, and encouraging others to reach their goals.
- Are passionate about health and wellbeing – You’re interested in nutrition, exercise, mental health, and lifestyle medicine.
- Want to make a real impact – You’re driven by the idea of helping people change their lives through prevention, not just treatment.
- Are a great listener – You understand that real change happens when people feel heard, supported, and empowered.
- Believe in long-term change, not quick fixes – You’re committed to sustainable habits over short-term solutions.
YOU’RE INVITED TO ATTEND THE MASTERCLASS
Free Health Coaching 101 Live Masterclass
Learn the key coaching skills and foundational concepts that flip the traditional medical model – empowering you to support sustainable change and explore a rewarding career in professional health coaching. We are running both New Zealand & Australian sessions.
Health Coach Training & Accreditations
At PREKURE, we’re setting the global standard in Health Coach education, with internationally recognised training that meets the highest industry benchmarks. Our programmes are backed by leading professional bodies and assessed for university-level equivalency, ensuring that graduates are well-equipped to make a real impact in health and wellbeing.
Internationally Recognised Training
PREKURE’s Health Coach programmes are recognised by key professional bodies across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Canada. These endorsements ensure that our graduates meet the highest industry standards and are eligible for professional memberships.
UK & International Health Coaching Association (UKIHCA)
The leading global association for Health Coaches, setting the benchmark for professional training.
Health Coach Alliance (HCA)
Advocating for the role of Health Coaches in healthcare and supporting ethical, high-quality coaching practices.
RNZCGP & RACGP (Royal Colleges of GPs in NZ & Australia)
PREKURE’s programmes are endorsed by both colleges, allowing Health Coaches to contribute meaningfully to primary healthcare teams.
Advanced level-Learning, Without the Bureaucracy
PREKURE is not a university, and that’s a good thing. Our courses have been independently assessed to be at the same level of learning as a university qualification, but unlike traditional institutions, we move fast. Our curriculum evolves in real time to reflect the latest in metabolic health, nutrition, mental wellbeing, and behaviour change science, ensuring graduates receive the most up-to-date knowledge.
NZQA and Micro-Credential Equivalency
PREKURE’s Health Coach programme has been independently assessed by the NZQA as having micro-credential equivalency of 30 credits (300 notational learning hours) at Level 5 on the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework (NZQCF).
This micro-credential equivalency means our programmes meet rigorous educational standards while remaining flexible, practical, and focused on real-world coaching skills.
