This article began with a practical question that kept returning as we developed NBHWC-approved health and wellness coach preparation within Walden University’s BS in Integrative Health: why has undergraduate education played such a small role in preparing people to enter the health and wellness coaching profession? Coaching education has grown through certificate programs, graduate education, and professional training, while the undergraduate route has received much less attention.

That question became the basis of an article now published Online First in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. In it, I consider undergraduate education as another route into professional coach preparation, particularly for students beginning to connect integrative health, behavior change, and coaching as part of their undergraduate education.

Writing the article also gave me a chance to put into words something I have seen through program development and teaching. Professional preparation can begin during undergraduate education, where students can encounter the science, skills, ethics, and supervised practice that form the basis of health and wellness coaching.

The DOI above is the permanent scholarly link to the published article. I have also added it to the Selected Publications section of my About page, where it appears with a small selection of earlier academic work.