Why Behaviour Change Is the Missing Link in Nutritional Therapy, and Why Zest4life Is Investing £250,000 to Help Practitioners Lead the Future

The nutritional therapy profession has changed more in the last three years than in the decade before it. And these changes are reshaping not only how we work, but where the profession must go next.

As part of this evolution, Zest4life has committed £250,000 to support Nutritional Therapists with behaviour-change training, including a £500 bursary available to every eligible practitioner. This is not just an investment in a new training course; it is a direct investment in you, your practice, and your long-term professional future.

To understand why this matters now more than ever, we need to look clearly at what is changing around us.

A Changing Professional Landscape

1. A shifting regulatory environment

The professional landscape is changing fast. In 2020, the Association for Nutrition (AfN) had around 2,500 members and 59 accredited degree programmes. Today, it has 4,600 members and more than 100 accredited programmes (AfN Annual Report 2023–2024).

By contrast, BANT has 3,000 members and currently recognises only seven accredited Nutritional Therapy courses. Though BCNH and CNELM have closed entry to their BSc in Nutritional Therapy, whilst CNELM's MSc in Personalised Nutrition remains available.

AfN nutritionists are already recognised within the NHS, and the organisation continues to lobby for a Royal Charter for the protected use of the title nutritionist. If granted, this could ultimately prevent nutritional therapists from using a term many rely on to describe their work.

This creates uncertainty for the nutritional therapy profession—whilst also sending a clear signal:

Nutritional Therapists must future proof their skills, building on skills that are uniquely ours and cannot be regulated away: namely client connection, deep clinical and root cause insights, and support for lifestyle and behaviour-change 

2. The explosive growth of Health Coaching

In 2020, the NHS employed around 60 Health Coaches. Today it employs 1,100, an 18-fold increase in five years (source Financial Times May 2023) and NHS England forecasts that number will rise to 6,000 by 2035.

This is one of the fastest-growing roles in healthcare, with the global market for health coaching projected to increase from $20.1 billion in 2025 to reach $41.2 billion by 2034 (Source: Dimension Market Research).

Health Coaches are in demand in many sectors, from healthcare to corporate wellness to digital healthtech. Zest4life’s sister company, The Health Coaches Academy, has trained almost 1,000 UK health coaches over the last 3 years and a number of the established Nutritional Therapy colleges CNM, ION and CNELM are moving with the times by developing their own health coaching courses (source: UK & International Health Coaches Association ). 

By adding coaching skills to their existing highly valuable nutrition and clinical skills set, NTs are uniquely positioned to be at the forefront of this movement.

3. The rise of AI and information overload

Clients now have instant access to nutrition facts, supplement protocols, meal plans, and even AI-generated interpretations of their test results.

But as many NTs have observed, this hasn’t solved the lifestyle disease crisis. If anything, clients are more overwhelmed, less consistent, and still searching for real support.

AI can produce lists and plans. It cannot deliver the nuance, empathy, context, or accountability required for genuine, long-term behaviour change and new sustainable healthy habits.

And this is where NTs remain not only relevant, but essential.

4. Be part of a fast growing profession full of opportunity

Health Coaching is one of the fastest-growing professions of the decade and is projected to expand by a further 75% by 2030. By adding coaching skills to your existing nutritional therapy skill set, you’ll be uniquely positioned to be part this vital movement toward behaviour change, and to create new, sustainable income streams including: 

✅ Working as a Health Coach, including roles within the NHS

✅ Partnering with Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to deliver diabetes prevention and lifestyle programmes

✅ Corporate Wellness, where health coaches are in high demand

✅ Stronger NT businesses, because coaching enables practitioners to:

• build deeper rapport on discovery calls

• improve enquiry-to-client conversion rates

• deliver longer, more profitable programmes incorporating both nutritional therapy and health coaching sessions.

• increased retention, as clients who make changes and experience real health transformation are more likely to come back for more.

Coaching doesn’t replace NT expertise—it amplifies it, increases income potential, and unlocks opportunities beyond the traditional clinic model.

Why Zest4life Is Evolving to Focus More on Behaviour Change

Zest4life has been at the forefront of behaviour change since 2007 and over 600 Nutritional Therapists have completed our popular six-week Introduction to Health Coaching Skills training course.

This evolution is not about leaving business mentoring behind. It’s about focussing on what we know makes the BIGGEST difference to Nutritional Therapists for the reality of practice today, and the future of the profession tomorrow.

Across thousands of client cases, one truth stands out:

Information alone doesn’t change lives. Behaviour change does.

No matter how well-constructed a protocol is, clients rarely succeed without:

• Understanding their why?

• Motivation support

• Accountability

• Emotional regulation

• Habit strategies

• Mindset shifts

• Skills-building

• Personalised guidance

  
  

In a world where AI can generate a meal plan in seconds, the role of the NT must go far beyond information.

Clients don’t need more knowledge. They need help turning knowledge into action—and sustaining it. That is the work of a Coach.

Introducing the Zest4life Health Coaching Training Fund

To support Nutritional Therapists to upskill and future proof their practice,  Zest4life is making its largest investment ever in the profession.

We are establishing a £250,000 Health Coaching Training fund to help practitioners develop coaching and behaviour-change expertise.

How it works:

• 500 Nutritional Therapists can apply

• Each receives a £500 bursary

• To put toward the HCA Coaching Certificate for Healthcare Professionals. This 12-week course is professionally recognised by the Association for Coaching and the NHS Personalised Care Institute 

• Reducing certification for Nutritional Therapists from £1500 → £1000

• Once qualified as a coach, you'll also receive 2 complimentary group mentoring sessions showing how to blend your new coaching skills with Nutritional Therapy (value £150)

This is not simply a discount. It is an investment in the future of nutritional therapy, and the NTs who will lead it.

Register Your Interest (For Both Practitioners and Students)

Whether you’re already practising as a Nutritional Therapist or still completing your studies, you may want to be first in line when the £250,000 Health Coaching Training Fund opens for applications.

You can now register your interest to receive advance notice as soon as places become available and when training opportunities go live.

To register, simply share:

• Your name

• Your email address

• Your nutrition college (or where you trained)

• Your year of graduation (or expected graduation year)

This is not an application and carries no commitment.

It simply ensures you’re among the first to hear when funded places are released.

Why This Matters for Practitioners

As the profession evolves, NTs who can facilitate behaviour change will stand out as the practitioners who: 

✅ deliver deeper, more sustainable results 

✅ stay in demand even as AI accelerates 

✅ take advantage of growing NHS, digital healthtech and corporate wellness opportunities 

✅ build a practice rooted in health transformation, not information

Coaching is not a departure from nutritional therapy. It is its natural evolution. It is what elevates your knowledge into long-term impact amd enables you to deliver even better health results for your clients.

An Invitation to Lead the Future

This manifesto is more than an announcement. It is a call to the profession to step confidently into the next chapter, one defined by connection, behaviour change, and professional resilience.

When we embrace coaching, we embrace the part of our work that AI can’t replicate, regulation can’t restrict, and clients can’t find elsewhere.

We invite you to join us in this evolution:

 not because the world is changing,

 but because you deserve to be leading that change

Register your interest in the £250,000 training fund today.