Lift The Bar

Within the coaching industry, conversations around body image, food relationships and disordered eating are becoming increasingly vital. As more fitness professionals reflect on their own experiences, a deeper understanding of the cultural expectations placed on coaches and clients alike is emerging.

Exploring body confidence, coaching culture, and inclusivity in fitness opens the door to a more sustainable and compassionate approach, one that moves away from restriction and instead prioritises self-awareness and long-term wellbeing. The following, explores ways in which coaches can foster a positive environment where clients’ feel empowered in their fitness journey.

 

1. Understanding the Coach's Relationship with Body Image

Many coaches enter the industry with complex histories around body image. Their initial interest in fitness may stem from personal struggles with food, exercise or body perception. While this can create empathy, it can also foster unexamined expectations that influence how coaches present themselves and work with clients.

Acknowledging that coaches are not immune to body image issues is the first step in building a more supportive culture. As Fitness professionals, it’s important we give ourselves the same space to navigate our own self-worth as we offer our clients.    

 

2. Moving Beyond Fat Loss as the Primary Goal

Traditional coaching models have often centred fat loss as the core objective. While body composition changes can be meaningful for some, they are not the only, or necessarily the healthiest, measure of progress.

Coaching rooted in self-respect and autonomy helps clients focus on what their bodies can do, how they feel and the freedom to enjoy movement without guilt. This shift encourages long-term behaviour change and nurtures a more stable relationship with food and fitness.

 

3. Educating Coaches on Relationship-Based Support

One of the most impactful shifts in modern coaching is the move towards education and emotional support. With the right tools, we can create environments where clients feel safe to be seen, heard and understood.

 

This includes:

• Challenging harmful food rules
• Helping clients define confidence beyond aesthetic goals
• Focusing on the many benefits that movement brings to individuals that have no relation to body composition or calorie expenditure.

 

4. Championing Research and Lived Experience

Ongoing research into disordered eating and body image within the fitness industry is shedding light on how widespread these issues truly are. Combining lived experience with evidence-based understanding allows us to approach our work with a more compassion and competent approach.

When coaches share their own stories and pursue further education, they help dismantle the stigma around mental health and body image in fitness. This not only benefits clients, but contributes to a more inclusive and resilient industry.

 

Conclusion: Coaching with Care

Changing the narrative around fitness and body image begins with us being willing to question assumptions and lead with empathy. By prioritising self-worth over scales, relationships over rules and education over aesthetics, coaching becomes more than a transformation tool, it becomes a pathway to healing.

This is the future of fitness: one where both coaches and clients can thrive, grow and feel at home in their own skin.

 

Check out the Weight Neutral Coaching course for more on this topic or the Body Image Anxiety lesson in the Support Your Mental Wellbeing Course.

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