How health coaches can legally offer meal plans to clients
#TLDR
Many health coaches who are not licensed nutritionists and dietitians struggle with knowing how to navigate legal issues around helping clients. In order to stay legally compliant, health coaches should be mindful to not “prescribe” or “treat” any disease, to share recipe collections instead of prescribing meal plans, to direct their clients to other authorities like physicians, and to use disclaimers about their services.
If you’re not a licensed nutritionist or dietitian, there are some legal boundaries you need to take into consideration before forging ahead with your services.
Now, just because you’re not certified doesn’t mean you can’t help your clients and make a huge impact in their health.
This requires knowing what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do so you can keep your business running smoothly without being shut down by your state or province.
So how do you navigate these legal issues as a health coach? Here are the top 4 things to keep in mind.
Use meal plans as suggestions or advice, not as a “prescription” or “treatment”
Legally speaking, you cannot prescribe nutrition to your clients. You cannot “diagnose” or “treat” a condition or disease.
Precision Nutrition said it best when they answered the question, “Can personal trainers and health coaches give nutrition advice?” In a word, yes -- as long as you know the rules.
Precision Nutrition says you can:
Offer clients recipes and demonstrate food prep skills
Educate clients about the benefits of protein, healthy fats, and other macronutrients
Encourage clients to eat lean protein and nutrient-rich vegetables
Let clients know about evidence-based nutritional supplements that might augment their healthy lifestyle
Educate them about the principles of good nutrition and provide them with behavior-based coaching
Share resources from recognized nutrition organizations such as The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American Heart Association, and Precision Nutrition
Present nutritional information in an accessible, down-to-earth way that makes sense to clients — that engages them rather than makes their eyes glaze over.
2. Share recipe collections with your clients
As an unregistered health coach, you can suggest behavior change around eating habits. You can offer recipes and meal planning advice, but you cannot prescribe meal plans to treat or cure disease, as previously mentioned.
So how can health coaches best support their clients?
It’s a great idea to supply your clients with meal ideas in the form of recipe collections. This way, you can encourage your clients to create their own meal plans by providing them a “base camp” of great meal ideas that will help change their eating habits.
Why we love recipe collections:
They help clients know what to buy at the grocery store
They show clients what to cook and how, and
They provide a solid foundation for changing eating habits.
You can offer monthly subscriptions around your meal collections. Knowing what to eat can be a huge challenge for people who are trying to improve their diets, and many clients will pay a monthly fee to make this aspect of their lives easier and hassle-free.
This way, you’re providing direction and support without directly prescribing a meal plan.
3. Use disclaimers
By using a disclaimer on your website and meal collections, you are legally protecting yourself and reminding your clients where you fit in their health journey.
So what might a disclaimer sound like? “These services are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any condition or disease.”
You are communicating to people that you are not a doctor, but that you are there to help them change behaviors for a healthier lifestyle.
That brings us to our next point…
4. Point your clients to authority sources
Being a good health coach includes knowing your limits when it comes to helping people.
You’ll run into situations where you believe your client might have a condition or disease that you have no power to diagnose, treat, or cure.
This is when you say, “I think you should go to your local doctor or see a registered dietitian or nutritionist about this so they can put you on a treatment plan.”
Does this mean you’re turning away clients and giving up? Absolutely not.
This provides your clients with every support system they need to live healthier, instead of trying to handle everything yourself and risking legal action by your state or province.
How Can You Earn a Certification?
Earning a certification allows you to “provide evidence-based (instead of opinion-based) advice, do one-on-one coaching, lead workshops, and write about nutrition,” Says AFPA on their blog, “You can legally consult with clients who are trying to achieve optimal health through better food choices.”
Check out how to get certified on AFPA’s website by clicking here.
Making Nutrition Guidance Easy for Health Coaches
By using Meal Garden, health coaches can share nutritional information, suggest recipe ideas, provide grocery lists, and connect with clients through their personalized portals. We help health coaches improve client outcomes and significantly cut down on the time it takes to nutritionally support clients.
It’s free to sign up for a 7-day professional trial by clicking here.
FURTHER READING
4 Tips on How to Create Meal Plans Your Clients Will Actually Follow
How This Health Coach Makes An Additional $1k/Month Using This Powerful Meal Planning Software
This Feature in Meal Garden Lets You Get Laser Specific With Your Recipes and Meal Plans
