Fitness and wellness is a health science career that seeks to achieve healthy living through exercise, fitness, and stress management. Fitness and wellness consultants apply multidimensional approaches to achieve physical and mental wellness. Fitness consultants hold background training in exercise science, nutrition, health science, biology, and mental health. People pursuing this career can work in diverse settings like hospitals, schools, fitness houses, and corporations and operate private practices. Fitness and body wellness remedy many chronic ailments like diabetes, hypertension, cancer, blood pressure, and related heart diseases. With the above overall understanding, it is important to explore the fitness and wellness career concerning history, scope, demographics, and notable people it has involved.
The history of fitness and wellness existed with humanity though there might be varying terms used to describe it. There is no specific line of history defining fitness and wellness in this case because different experts gave it different names but referred to the same concept. In 1950, an American physician named Halbert Dunn developed wellness and fitness linked to healthy wellbeing (http://www.jgypk.hu/). Fitness and wellness are not only limited to exercise but also emotional balance, stress management, good sleep, body relaxation, and healthy nutrition. Organizations have recently embraced fitness and wellness programs to maintain healthy human capital. For instance, 3 out of 5 corporations across Europe have set aside fitness budgets and made it mandatory for employees to join at least one wellness program.
Kenneth Cooper (2013) defined the concept as optimal health combining nutrition, daily exercise, and a pulse rate of 60-80%. Cooper extended the concept to include good sleep, rest, and emotional balance. In his view, a combination of the above brings optimal well-being, which in other words, can mean fitness and wellness. The success of fitness and wellness programs largely depends on the individual commitment to attaining a healthy body. One should be committed to the responsible taking of drugs, regular exercising, avoiding risky situations, and managing stress.
A fitness and wellness career entails customizing individual fitness plans based on the client’s needs. It is the work of a fitness and wellness consultant to develop individualized nutrition and exercise plan based on the assessment of the client. The consultant customizes wellness plans because each client requires a different approach to attaining a healthy body. The working setup largely shapes the type of plan a consultant would recommend. For instance, fitness consultants working for large corporations prepare presentations outlining fitness plans and share them with employees. It becomes easy for individual employees to adopt the plan they think fits them.
In contrast, consultants dealing with individual clients adopt a customized plan to attain the desired healthy body, depending on the nature of the client. The main services to society are healthy nutrition plans and various daily body exercises by age and gender. Society sometimes benefits from fitness consultants when they hold public seminars to speak about optimal healthy living.
Concerning the career demographics, research by www.zippia.com indicate that of the 18121 fitness and wellness consultants employed in the US, 70.8 are female while 29.2 are male. The average age for these consultants is 47 years, with 65% being whites, 14.5 being Latinos, 10.9% being blacks, and 4.4 being Asian. Notably, most of these consultants serve in the education sector, with 16% having come out as LGBTQ.
Fitness and wellness careers attracted public figures who engaged in fitness consultancy alongside their celebrity activities. With celebrities joining the career, recorded fitness programs became popular, with the latest being Google apps promoting fitness. Some notable names in this career include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Olivia Newton-John, Suzanne Somers, Gilad Janklowicz, Raquel Welch, Jake Steinfeld, Jane Fonda, Chuck Norris, Heather Locklear, Alyssa Milano, and Kathy Smith (https://www.menshealth.com/). All these celebrities promoted fitness and wellness by recording different videos of nutrition and daily body exercises. With their bid for societal influence, the content reached millions of people who would otherwise not afford to hire a fitness and wellness consultant.
A fitness and wellness career requires the consultant to build a personal relationship with the client to attain optimal results. Building good rapport with clients and understanding their diverse needs require high-level training. With a well-trained consultant, clients build trust and feel comfortable interacting with the consultant. Fitness and wellness consultants receive various training and certification, with the basic requirement being a bachelor’s degree in health-related subjects, for instance, exercise science. The career also requires certifications in anatomy, physiology, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and first aid. The career requires expert-level communication skills because it touches sensitive areas of human life. In this case, consultants require industrial training after coursework to gain firsthand experience handling clients. Internships help consultants put into applications classwork, learn existing best practices, learn client dynamics, and practice communication. When consultants undergo some internship program, they gain assessment skills and place themselves on par with the required fitness plans.
References
https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/g23472110/best-fitness-gurus/?slide=14
https://www.zippia.com/health-and-wellness-coordinator-jobs/demographics/
http://www.jgypk.hu/tamop13e/tananyag_html/wellness_eng/the_history_of_wellness.html#:~:text=The%20word%20wellness%20was%20coined,businesses%20and%20population%20lifetstyle%20programmes.
Cooper, K. H. (2013). Aerobics program for total well-being: Exercise, diet, and emotional balance. Bantam.
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