What industry changes should non-diet health professionals prepare for in 2026?

Non-diet health professionals should prepare for seven emerging shifts: the decline of information-only offers, rising demand for customization, AI-supported business systems, the GLP-1 rebound era, increased need for specialization, business simplicity, and long-form content as a conversion tool. These shifts reflect client sophistication, market maturity, and growing interest in behavior-centered, weight-neutral support

[00:00:00] Stephanie: Welcome to It’s Beyond the Food Podcast, my sisters. I’m your host, stephanie Dodier and today is my annual prediction for the non-diet coaching industry.

[00:00:12] So if you’ve been around last year, I think the first week of January, I did my prediction for 2025. And it was one of the most popular episodes, both on YouTube and on the podcast feeds. And I’m gonna make this an annual episode that I’m gonna do, and I’m gonna follow your feedback. I’m gonna do it earlier.

[00:00:39] So you’re listening to this mid-December instead of the second week of January. So I wanna help you with this podcast episode, understand the shift in both the online industry of coaching and the non-diet industry. I want you to think about this [00:01:00] as your annual briefing, your roadmap, and I changed the timing to give you a chance to get ahead, prepare, and plan.

[00:01:11] For the shift that I foresee coming in 2026. So for any people listening to this because of SEO, you’ve never met me before, and here you are. I’m Stephanie Dodier and I’m the founder of the Non Diet Coaching Certification. I have spent the last, now almost 10 years in the health industry. I’m a nutritionists at the core, and I have been working exclusively in a non-diet health space for almost the last eight years now, coaching general population uniquely women. And for the last five and a half years now, teaching coaching health professional to enter or [00:02:00] grow within the non-diet space.

[00:02:01] So I have multiple program non diet coaching certification, the Growth Collective, which is a business mentorship. So I see what’s happening. I have collected patterns. I see what’s working, what’s gaining traction, what’s losing momentum. So, if you are in that space, you may want to pay attention to my observation right now.

[00:02:26] So for you today, I’ve got seven shift that I see are going to impact us in the industry, and I’m gonna communicate them to you in a kind of a three-prong approach. For every shift, i’m gonna tell you what I believe, why it’s happening, how it may show up for you, and what does this mean for your business, AKA, the action you potentially want to consider for your practice and your business.

[00:02:59] Let’s get started. [00:03:00] You ready? The very first shift, the age of selling information is dead. Let’s do the funeral of selling information ’cause I 100% belief at my core that this phase of our industry is way behind us. So Google has had free information for over well over a decade now. AI for the last couple years has allowed us to organize this information based on our individual need, and both are free.

[00:03:43] So in our industry, people buying information is no longer what is happening. For those of you who are generating good revenue, what I like to say, making good money, it’s [00:04:00] because you are selling the implementation. And if you wanna continue to thrive in 2026, that’s where the focus needs to be, implementation, customization, personalization of the implementation of the information.

[00:04:20] So the courses is dead. Every time I hear somebody say I’m doing a course like I vibrate to my spine, I’m like, no, don’t do that. It’s a waste of your time. It’s a waste of your resources. Sell coaching implementation. So what does that mean for you in business program? Program that structure the implementation of the information in your particular sector of specialization in the problem you solve for your client and [00:05:00] holding the hands of your client to the finish line.

[00:05:05] So that you can support them when thing gets hard, when they want to quit, when they feel stuck. And that is 100% the world of coaching. Specifically in the sector of health servicing, health counseling, it’s behavioral coaching. People have the information, they know what they should be doing, but for whatever reason, they are not doing it.

[00:05:37] That’s what I call implementation, and that’s what will thrive in 2026. You creating programs, structure, processes that you’re gonna sell people in, implementing the information relevant to the problem you solve to your sector, and getting them to the finish line.

[00:05:56] Now, if you’re new to coaching [00:06:00] or you’re new to behavioral change within your health sector, I can help you with that inside the non diet coaching certification. That is where I teach professional skillset specifically around health behavior change and. by necessity, body image coaching as well.

[00:06:20] The Grow Collective, the other key program that I have, is where we systemize the selling process of the coaching program. I do not support systemizing or marketing courses.

[00:06:37] I just don’t, because I know like I have a deep ethical perspective on this, and you will not find one of my client or my student selling a course because I don’t believe, and they don’t believe that this is what the future is in 2026.

[00:06:57] Which leads me to the shift number two, [00:07:00] customization is expected in 2026, so on the same team of implementation.

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