Physical inactivity, and the health problems that follow in its wake, recently attained pandemic status. Addressing this problem falls under the category of a global public health priority.
Many countries throughout the world have developed policies and guidelines for promoting/prescribing participation in physical activity as a successful means of intervention for chronic health conditions. We no longer need to rely solely upon endorsements by elite athletes to spread this message. Personal trainers and other exercise professionals who provide services to the general community can help influence public health initiatives. Read on to discover how trainers can get involved in the life-affirming realm of public health and policymaking.
Public Health Defined
How do we view health care within the United States? Do we conjure up images of physicians and hospitals, pharmacists dispensing medications, dentists performing routine cleaning, free clinics serving impoverished neighborhoods? While these ideals do reflect our current health care system, there exists an entirely separate sector of care that significantly and undeniably impacts the well-being of our community members: public health.
We can think of public health initiatives as those which seek to promote prevention, as opposed to providing care for and cures to illnesses. Professionals who work in this field take on the daunting responsibility of promoting and protecting the health and welfare of communities. We trust, and have come to rely upon, our clinicians for treating individuals living with various illnesses; just imagine a world in which we have public health professionals striving to prevent us from getting sick in the first place.
Physical inactivity, identified by the World Health Organization as the 4th highest risk factor for global mortality, profoundly affects the prevalence of disease and deteriorates the general health of populations. Decades of evidence indicates that adequate levels of physical activity, such as prescribed exercise, can serve not only as an effective intervention for prevention of many chronic health conditions; regular exercise works towards improvement of mental health and overall quality of life.
Health Equity
All public health positions operate one some level towards the fulfillment of the three core functions of public health: assessment, policy development, and assurance. They have coined the term “health equity” to define these principles.
A task force of public health experts, medical professionals and employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed this framework to outline the public health activities all communities should undertake. Learning about this can help personal trainers commit to becoming more enmeshed in the quest to promote exercise within these parameters.
Assessment
- Provides organizations with comprehensive information about a community’s health status, needs, and challenges
- Develops community health improvement plans, determining how best to allocate potentially scarce resources
- Investigates, diagnoses, and addresses hazards affecting the population
Policy Development
- Communicates effectively to inform and educate people about health, factors that influence it, and how to improve it
- Strengthens, supports, and mobilizes communities and partnerships to improve environmental health
- Creates and implements policies, plans, and laws that impact community health
Public policy serves as one of the most effective ways to improve the health of communities. Public health professionals, which include exercise instructors and personal trainers/coaches, play an important role in public policy development. By inserting themselves into a community and cultivating the proper relationships with medical teams, exercise professionals serve as assets in promoting and implementing healthy interventions.
Assurance
This branch focuses on ensuring that the findings gathered through assessment and policy-related research get properly and effectively implemented.
- Utilizing legal and regulatory actions to improve/ protect the public’s health
- Ensuring equitable access to the services and care needed for a healthy community
- Developing and supporting a diverse and skilled public health workforce
- Improving and innovating public health functions through ongoing evaluation, research, and continuous improvement
- Building/maintaining a strong organizational infrastructure for public health
The Far-Reaching Potential of Exercise Professionals
The American Public Health Association offers many suggestions for health coaches and exercise professionals to consider. The potential exists for us to extend our skills outside of just gyms and fitness centers, thereby reaching so many more individuals, especially those in underserved areas of the community. The following statistics merely scratch the surface of the core health challenges we face in our country ~
- Lacking support and feeling excluded within a social community can have a negative effect on mental and physical health
- While public health resources exist in a community, often physical, mental, financial, cultural and language barrier challenges stand in the way of easy access
- Fitness professionals must remain open to communities of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those living with disabilities. Only by listening and responding appropriately can we ensure that public health remains fair and accessible for all members of society
For fitness professionals, addressing these points hinges on finding creative ways to build a sense of community centered on physical activity and wellness. Local health fairs allow trainers to establish their names within a community while building trust among individuals, all of which contribute to making a positive impact on public health. As people become more active, they come to view their community and the role you play as a source of social support. Once you have helped people establish a physically active way of life, improved physical and mental health will follow.
Overcoming Barriers
Helping clients and community members overcome barriers to accessing health resources represents a key area where health coaches and exercise professionals can make a difference. Very often members in your community lack the financial resources to join a gym. Sometimes the barrier rests on a lack of reliable transportation to and from a recreational facility. Perhaps physical or mental health conditions exist that limit one’s ability to exercise in a traditional manner. In our country’s “melting pot” of diversity, cultural and language barriers render some communities isolated.
By learning and possessing a willingness to think outside the traditional box, health coaches and exercise professionals can serve populations in creative ways. We might consider offering opportunities to improve people’s health/wellness in churches, parks, municipal centers and even personal homes.
Ensuring equity, a significant public health concern within communities, involves taking into consideration how we might work to correct existing disparities. Are wheelchair ramps easily accessible where you plan to exercise? Do you speak a second language in addition to English that might prove useful should you wish to start a workout program in certain neighborhoods? Are there resources for the LGBTQ+ community that might be interested in adding physical activity to their list of offerings? When it comes to public health, equity often means finding people where they currently gather and offering to work with them there.
Responsibility Rests in our Hands
As a society, we may acknowledge the problem of physical inactivity; but who bears the locus of responsibility? Professionals in the fitness industry can achieve status as a valuable public health resource as well as an essential component in the delivery of policy recommendations. Researchers, politicians, industry organizations, and policymakers support viewing fitness professionals as assets towards change. In the most recent edition of the Fitness Professional’s Handbook, authors state that “Fitness professionals are at the cutting edge of health in much the same way that scientists discovering vaccines for major diseases were at the turn of the 20th century.”
The former president of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), Robert Sallis, recognizes that fitness experts can figure prominently in what he calls the “war” against inactivity. He goes on to add, “[W]e must begin to merge the fitness industry with the healthcare industry if we are going to improve world health.… With a wealth of evidence in hand, it is time for organized medicine to join with fitness professionals to ensure that patients around the world take their exercise pill. There is no better way to improve health and longevity.”
For many years, researchers in the field of kinesiology discounted and/or failed to recognize fitness professionals as potential beacons of enlightenment. Given that for a majority of working adults, fitness professionals will serve as key points of contact for physical activity and exercise support, the need for research to move in this direction seems straightforward. In 2005, Hal Lawson, Professor in the Department of Educational Policy & Leadership at SUNY-Albany, spoke of the urgent need for sport, exercise, and physical education professionals to collaborate with other professions, “enabling the various programs and services to be connected and integrated as part of a growing international movement that promotes inter-professional collaboration.” In some countries, schools have tried to introduce students to community fitness facilities and instructors as part of their curriculum. If a gap exists within a community regarding knowledge about fitness professionals and what we do, any attempts to offer a consistent approach to physical activity education and the ensuing health initiative improvements get undermined and often derailed.
Which Comes First?
While empowered community development helps promote sports, exercise and physical education (SEPE) professionals, strategically designed SEPE practices, programs, and policies offer improvements to community development initiatives. This unique duality can empower trainers to get involved with groups that strive to build collaboration with those who do not possess the capacity or willingness to evolve into elite athletes.
We can remain open to collaboration with other professionals—especially social workers—who delve into empowerment and community development, such as those working in anti-poverty arenas and community building. As SEPE professions develop this capacity to serve as leaders within a community, entirely new possibilities will pop up. We can contribute to sustainable, integrated social and economic development. When SEPE programs benefit development, local governments often view them as worthwhile investments for funding.
Joint Collaboration
SEPE professionals can join a growing international movement that promotes “interprofessional collaboration”. This translates to professionals from different fields knowing they can depend on each other; therefore, they display a willingness to work and learn together. In many parts of the world where such a dynamic already exists, the inter-professional collaboration movement connects to university–school–community partnerships and to interprofessional education and training programs.
Empowerment-oriented and community-based SEPE programs and practices may contribute to sustainable development in five related areas:
- enhance human health and well-being across the lifespan
- reduce the harm brought about by poverty, social exclusion, social isolation, and inter-group conflict
- contribute to human capital development, especially among vulnerable youth
- develop collective identities, thereby facilitating collective action
- foster social networks and voluntary associations, which bring about strong democracies
Fitness professionals have so much to offer in these aforementioned arenas. We need to possess the confidence and willingness to leave the gym and enter yet one more area in which we know we can have a profound effect on public health nationwide.
SEPE professionals, practices, programs, and policies have the potential to strengthen both empowerment and community development initiatives, especially in high poverty areas who already experience social exclusion, social isolation, and inter-group hostility, unfortunately often on a daily basis. To the extent that SEPE professionals engage in such local endeavors, they can actually see themselves as contributing to national and international agendas for sustainable, integrated social and economic development.
Bottom Line
Nationally certified professional exercise organizations (AFAA, ACE, NSCA, NACM, NFPT, to name a few) strive to deliver exercise-science and behavior-change education in ways that are engaging and compelling, recruiting more people to become exercise professionals and health coaches. Employees of such certifying bodies – and by extension, those among us who have sought out and hold these various certifications — drive innovation in the area of behavior-change programming, helping the public adopt and sustain healthier lifestyles. We can promote science-based programs and interventions and integrate them into aspects of public health.
If as personal trainers you find yourselves drawn to more than just the fitness center environs, you may consider branching out and dedicating your careers to promoting, protecting, restoring, and improving the health of your communities. Public Health professionals need exercise experts to foster one of the most important aspects of overall well-being.
References:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1016/S1441-3523%2808%2970112-8?src=recsys
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430430802019268?src=recsys
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1357332052000308800
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00336297.2016.1224193
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6517258/
Cathleen Kronemer is an NFPT CEC writer and a member of the NFPT Certification Council Board. Cathleen is an AFAA-Certified Group Exercise Instructor, NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer, ACE-Certified Health Coach, former competitive bodybuilder and freelance writer. She is employed at the Jewish Community Center in St. Louis, MO. Cathleen has been involved in the fitness industry for over three decades. Feel free to contact her at trainhard@kronemer.com. She welcomes your feedback and your comments!
