What is a
Functional Approach to Health?
Before we get into the details of a functional approach to health, let’s talk about what you’re probably more familiar with – a medical approach to health. The National Cancer Institute defines Allopathic Medicine as “a system in which medical doctors and other healthcare professionals (such as nurses, pharmacists, and therapists) treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation, or surgery. Also called biomedicine, conventional medicine, mainstream medicine, orthodox medicine, and Western medicine.”
Simply put, if you have acid reflux you’ll end up with an acid blocker. If you’re dealing with high cholesterol, you might get put on a statin. High blood pressure? Beta-blocker. Horrible PMS and hormonal acne? Birth control.
With a medical approach to health, there’s a drug for every symptom.
The mainstream healthcare system was not trained to support patients in their journey to prevent chronic disease. It was designed to treat acute symptoms and deal with emergencies like a child getting pink eye, or someone having a heart attack.
In Western medicine, if you’re healthy, you don’t need medication. If you’re sick, you’re on medication to prevent whatever symptoms you’re dealing with.
Making the Shift to a Functional Approach to Health
But what about the journey from healthy to sick? How did you get there? What happened along the way that could’ve been prevented?
Rather than “What can I take to stop my joint pain?” what if we were to ask “Why am I having joint pain? What am I eating? What does my level of activity look like? Are there food sensitivities that are causing inflammation in my body?”
This shift in thinking clearly shows a prioritization of root cause analysis. Let’s stop putting a band-aid on the symptoms and go for the real culprit – our lifestyle choices.
As you’ll soon learn, lifestyle-induced diseases are not only manageable with the right tools, but they are preventable!
The body is a dynamic system.
All of its pieces and parts: thyroid, liver, gut, adrenals, hormones, and more, do not act in isolation. If you work on gut health, you are undeniably improving thyroid function and hormone health. It’s important to understand these connections so that you can truly take an integrative and functional approach to health; finding the root cause and treating the individual as a whole.
No matter your focus … whether it’s fat loss, lowering inflammation, improving hormones, healing acne, or eliminating achy joints … the body as a dynamic system must be the foundation of your protocol. This will no doubt change the way you think as you move forward in pursuing a career as a functional health coach.
The functional health industry is overflowing with opportunity. Learn the tools today that will make you stand out and change the trajectory of your career forever.
Learn Tools
With our functional approach to health, you’ll get the tools to not only manage lifestyle-induced diseases, but also prevent them.
Support Patients
As a functional health coach, you’ll be able to support patients in their journey to prevent chronic disease.
Stand Out
The functional health industry is overflowing with opportunity. Learn the tools today that will make you stand out and change the trajectory of your career forever.
