Let’s face it: Australia has a weight problem. Recent research confirms that over 14 million Australians are considered overweight or obese. Australia ranks among the fattest nations in the developed world.
While there has been a push toward encouraging people to look after their health, obesity rates have more than doubled in the last two decades. Clearly, our attempts to solve this problem are not working.
One reason is the segmented approach to weight loss. Various industries that have something to offer the nation’s weight loss project tend to favour their own practices and do not work together. Fitness professionals work independently from dieticians. GPs do not provide fitness tips. This means that clients often lack support and education in other crucial areas, and end up falling off the bandwagon in their efforts to tackle their weight issues. Whether it’s fitness or dieting, many people who try to lose weight tend to go down one path, hoping that each new approach will be the magic solution. But no matter how great your training routine, or how impeccable your diet, weight issues are seldom successfully overcome by one route alone.
The best way to tackle weight gain is to implement a holistic approach, including exercise, diet and psychological factors that come into play. With this in mind, the Certificate 4 in Weight Management was developed to provide the opportunity for professionals in specific areas related to weight management to offer a more holistic approach to their clients’ weight loss journeys. This course encourages referrals and networking within the health and weight loss community to enable clients to achieve their goals with maximum support.
A Certificate 4 in Weight Management offers Personal Trainers the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the challenges people face in their struggle to shed weight. Using this insight, PTs can offer the support and expertise required to help their clients overcome those challenges.
If you’d like to expand your horizons as a Personal Trainer or Wellness Professional, here are some of the benefits offered by a Certificate 4 in Weight Management.
Help Your Clients Get Results
One of the biggest sources of frustration for PT clients—and one of the top causes of drop-outs—is the fact that breaking a sweat five days per week does not necessarily lead to weight loss. Why? Because you can’t tackle excess weight through exercise alone. Other factors come into play. Drawing on other areas of weight management will help you keep your clients on track to meeting their goals, boosting client retention.
A Personal Trainer with a Certificate 4 in Weight Management can offer a client so much more than a training schedule. Operating with the backing of a Weight Management Practitioner’s Scope of Practice, your role as a personal trainer expands to include so much more. Firstly, meal planning. As a professional in the fitness industry, you’ll be well aware that diet is vital to weight loss. You can’t outrun a bad diet, right?
But it’s easy to take this knowledge for granted if you’re immersed in the fitness industry. Many of your clients will not have this essential grounding. They may not be equipped to devise suitable meal plans to help them achieve their weight loss goals. With a Certificate 4 in Weight Management, you will be qualified to offer each of your clients a personalised meal plan tailored to their individual needs and weight loss goals. In addition to diet advice, you’ll also be in a position to draw on counseling principals and aspects of psychology to assist your clients in identifying and changing behaviours that often lead to self-sabotage.
Leave a Legacy in Clients’ Lives
Weight loss is a journey with many highs and lows. One of the most rewarding prospects that a Certificate 4 in Weight Management offers is the opportunity to bring lasting change to people’s lives. By giving your clients the tools to remove other obstacles to weight loss, you not only help them smash their weight loss goals in the short-term but help them create a sustainable approach to diet and fitness that will sustain them through life. Building holistic approaches to weight management into your program, you will have a major role in helping your clients combat weight issues for the rest of their lives.
Open Doors Within The Wellness Space
While you may have entered the Health & Fitness industry to pursue a passion for one particular area of wellness, you may find your specialty slightly limiting when it comes to guiding a client through the complex intersection of factors that affect their success. A Certificate 4 in Weight Management opens new doors for you within the wellness industry, helping you broaden your career horizons. New expertise and skills under your belt will enable you to build close ties with other professionals working in adjacent industries. The course facilities and encourages knowledge sharing and networking across a range of disciplines, bringing together a range of professionals with the shared goal of helping clients realise their goal of losing weight. With your new qualification, you may wish to branch out as a health coach or consultant in a range of wellness and health areas.
Stay at The Cutting Edge of a Growth Industry
Obesity and other weight-related health issues cost the economy and individuals vast sums of money every year. By 2025, almost three-quarters of Australians will be overweight or obese. So it’s hardly surprising that the weight loss industry is extremely well funded. One result of this boom in the industry is a fast-growing body of research into the highly complex factors affecting weight loss. A Certificate 4 in Weight Management gives you insight into this exciting field of research, helping you stay at the cutting edge of the industry. Whether you’re passionate about, nutrigenomics, neuroscience or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), you’ll learn the latest findings that are being implemented in the weight management industry.
Another result of the phenomenal growth in this industry is the increased need for weight loss services. According to IBISWorld, the demand for weight-loss counseling services is on the rise. With your Certificate 4 in Weight Management, you will be well equipped to fill this niche.
Whether you’re a personal trainer or a wellness professional, a Certificate 4 in Weight Management offers countless benefits for your career—not to mention your clients.