For the Health Professional

Now, more than ever, people need health professionals who are passionate, well-informed, honest, and capable. We can help.

Help Others Reach Their Full Health Potential

Health Professional Training Overview

Our company has been in business for almost 27 years. During that time, we have developed the largest libraries in the world of articles, videos, educational programming, and other tools designed to help consumers make informed choices concerning their health. This allows consumers to make decisions about health-related issues the same way they make other important decisions such as purchasing cars, houses, and retirement accounts – by gathering information, asking questions, and then considering factors like evidence, personal values,  finances, and goals.  

We have helped people all over the world to truly take control of their health by changing their decision-making process from one that involves following instructions to one that focuses on informed decision-making. 

We have also developed training programs for both already-trained health professionals and for those who are untrained and want to enter the healthcare field. 

Our curricula is designed to help you to develop a successful practice based on our  model. We can help you to:

Understand what today’s client/patient wants and is willing to pay for

Design a new practice or repurpose an existing practice that focuses on evidence-based decision-making and diet and lifestyle intervention

Learn proven methods for motivating and sustaining diet and lifestyle change

Write and deliver effective educational seminars and curricula that lead to improved health for your clients/patients

Learn how to develop and market your health-related business and attract patients/clients who are interested in taking control of their health

Develop research skills required to assist with informed healthcare decision-making

Learn specific protocols that address the whole person, and that have been shown to result in better long-term health outcomes

Our Programs Are Different

We consider diet and lifestyle habits to be part of an overall health improvement program that incorporates many other strategies, the most important of which is informed medical decision-making. About 35% of our new members/clients have adopted health-promoting diet and lifestyle habits, yet they continue to have health issues.

There are many reasons for this,  including taking drugs and supplements that are useless or harmful; consenting to screen tests that are more likely to harm than help; agreeing to unnecessary procedures, and having trouble sorting out fact from fiction when making health-related choices. Graduates of our programs are more helpful to people because they are trained to address “whole person” health, which includes paying attention to ALL issues that impact health. 

Another differentiating factor is that a significant percentage of our training (80%) is delivered via live and interactive sessions through virtual classrooms (live and interactive teleconference).  We do not believe that people can be taught to be successful through exclusively online learning.  

We focus on application/intervention as much as the acquisition of knowledge since this is the missing link for most people. We seldom encounter a person (consumer or health professional) who does not understand the information they learn from us. But most of them struggle to  apply what they learn – and that’s the piece that matters most.

Last but not least, we are teaching people to do what we have been doing for almost 27 years  – delivering health-related services in community settings. The actual development and conducting of a business and helping real people to sort out complicated health issues is quite different than purely academic discussions.

A note for those with no prior healthcare training: 

We are excited about helping more people to regain and maintain their health through diet and lifestyle change, and to learn how to make better choices about medical care. We have the best and most comprehensive programs that address these issues, and we want to make our programming available to more people. We know that the best way to do this is through associates who can educate, inspire, and support our members.  

Our training program is comprehensive and will teach you everything you need to know in order to start a health education/consulting business. You do not need any previous training to qualify. If you are currently practicing healthy habits (or are ready to start), are willing to lead by example, have an outgoing personality, a strong work ethic, a desire to learn new things and are motivated to help other people, you are a candidate for one of our programs.

What Makes Our Information Libraries Different?

by Pam Popper, President

In spite of having access to more information than ever before, the public is more confused than ever before about many health-related issues. And confusion stands in the way of good decision-making. Much of this confusion results from the fact that a person can advocate for  

almost any diet, food, supplement, drug, or medical practice using studies and articles published in medical journals, and citing “experts” who support the claims made. Thus there are published studies and experts proclaiming that a Paleo Diet is best, and published studies and experts proclaiming that a plant-based diet is best. And there are published studies and experts recommending population screening for vitamin D deficiency, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and the MTHFR gene mutation; and published studies and experts claiming that these practices are more harmful than helpful.  

Consumers read a book, attend a lecture, or take a course and think they can make a good decision based on what they know, only to be confronted with information that is the polar opposite of what they have learned. It can paralyze some people who have important  decisions to make, such as which cancer treatments to select; and where diet is concerned the  confusion can result in people continuing to eat a terrible diet since it seems like there is no  dietary theory that everyone agrees is “right.”  

Essentially there is no clear conclusion to be reached on almost any issue when an individual’s or organization’s point of view is the basis for making recommendations. The adoption of  “science as a point of view” has resulted in significant degeneration of scientific discussion.  The only way to resolve this is to establish some criteria for how the information will be filtered that most reasonable people can agree on. 

To address this very important issue, a few years ago, my colleagues and I established objective criteria for evaluating information in order to reduce confusion for the people we help with health issues. When these criteria are applied, the risks and benefits of almost any health-related practice become clear and decision-making is easier. Our approach is a lot like how football is played– without rules of the game people could debate indefinitely which team won a football game. But since the rules are clear – each quarter is 15 minutes, a first-down is ten yards, and a field goal requires kicking the football through the posts – in almost all cases the winner of the game is agreed on by all. 

All experts are not considered equal. One of my pet peeves is the media’s tendency to  present both points of view, with an “expert” from “each side.” While the presentation of different viewpoints is a good idea, the various experts should be well-matched in terms of education and accomplishment. But this does not happen.

Often two people who have widely divergent backgrounds and levels of expertise are presented as having equal standing. Thus a scientist who has published over 300 papers in top peer-reviewed journals, and spent decades conducting carefully controlled research studies (Dr. T. Colin Campbell) presents evidence supporting a plant-based diet; while Gary Taubes, a journalist with the New York Times, and who has no specialized knowledge about diet, health, and medicine, presents evidence for eating an animal foods-based diet.

It is easy for the reader to perceive both of these individuals to be experts and to have equal standing which is simply not true. 

Any proposed intervention must result in improved long-term outcomes, not just changes in surrogate markers. This rule applies to dietary supplements, diets, drugs, and procedures. For example, both statin drugs and high-dose niacin lower plasma cholesterol, but they have very little impact on the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death.

For statins, the risk reduction for members of the general population is less than 2%. On the other hand, Dr.  Caldwell Esselstyn has followed his patients for over 30 years and has shown that a low-fat plant-based diet keeps even patients with terminal coronary artery disease alive for decades.  Dr. Esselstyn’s longitudinal study carries significantly more weight due to his ability to show real improvement in health and significantly better long-term outcomes. 

Storytelling is not a substitute for evidence. I always assume positive intent and honesty until shown evidence to the contrary, so when people tell me stories I believe they are true.  Examples include “My uncle ate bacon, eggs, and cheese three times per day, lived to be 94  years old and died in his sleep,” and “I had a flu shot last year and did not get the flu.” But stories carry no weight in our world in terms of decision-making. What has happened to one person is not an indication of what will happen to other people who engage in the same behavior. For example, I know people who regularly drink too much alcohol and drive, have never been pulled over and convicted of DUI, and have never had an accident. I think we can all agree that reporting that it is safe to drink and drive using stories of people who “get away with it” would be ludicrous. 

But this is done all of the time, even by doctors and researchers who should know better.  Loren Cordain’s The Paleo Diet is largely supported by stories of people who gave up pizza and cupcakes and started eating wild elk and deer and lost weight. Others engage in conjecture about what people ate 6 million years ago while wandering the earth looking for food. The stories and conjecture are meaningless and I do not understand why we are debating what people ate 6 million years ago when we have accurate data about what people eat right now and their health status.  

Wellness Forum Health uses several other criteria as a filter for evaluating information. The three examples cited above are examples of how these filters are applied. This helps consumers to make sense of the massive amount of information they are bombarded with regularly and to feel more confident about the choices they make.

In our world, rules are employed to govern everything, ranging from sports to how corporations operate and how laws are passed. In the absence of rules, chaos results.  Enterprising charlatans, manufacturers of drugs, vaccines, and supplements, and medical institutions take advantage of this chaos to sell their ideas about diet, health, and medicine, and this can be stopped by applying objective rules in evaluating all health-related issues. 

Rules for Evaluating Evidence  

These are some of the filters we use to arrive at conclusions that are reported in  our libraries: 

  • Conflicts of interest 
  • Study design, including selection bias 
  • Length of follow-up 
  • Actual improvement in health, not just improvement in surrogate markers Establishment of cause-and effect-relationships, since correlations are often  meaningless 
  • Identification of a plausible mechanism of action 
  • Serious limitations associated with self-reported data 
  • Selection bias 
  • The extent to which research findings have been replicated by others  
  • Relying on the preponderance of evidence rather than a single study 

Taking control of your health is not achieved by looking for “better practitioners” to tell you what to do. Taking control of your health is achieved by making your decisions based on your understanding of the risks and benefits of any and all health-related options.

Benefits of Affiliation

The Wellness Forum Health Affiliate Program is available to graduates of the Certified Health  Educator Program and the Nutrition Educator Program and is available to doctors, nurses,  dietitians, nutritionists, physical therapists, athletic trainers, mental health professionals, yoga teachers – anyone who is engaged in providing health-related services and whose philosophy is compatible with ours. 

The purpose of affiliation is twofold; to provide you with structured programming and products to offer to your clients/patients, and to generate additional income for your practice or business. Building a health-related business can be challenging, in part because there are so many things to do. Using our programs and products to support your practice saves you from having to create your own, and allows you to focus on spending quality time with the people you want to help.  

Our Current Resources:

  • Thousands of hours of programming and hundreds of referenced articles to facilitate evidence-based discussions (new materials are developed regularly) 
  • Effective practice templates and protocols  
  • Profitable practice models (practitioners do not have to decide between doing the  “right” thing and the “profitable” thing) 
  • Proven intervention programs for chronic/degenerative diseases (food-borne illnesses),  psychological issues, and musculoskeletal disorders 
  • A diverse line of quality health-promoting products 
  • Well-developed marketing strategies 
  • Comprehensive training programs that allow practitioners to duplicate our success Well-developed infrastructure for support 
  • Excellent international reputation 

The Affiliate Program allows you to be in business for yourself but not by yourself.

 

The Wellness Forum Institute for Health Studies 

The Wellness Forum Institute for Health Studies is the first school in the U.S. to offer certificates and diplomas based on the philosophy of evidence-based healthcare using diet and lifestyle as primary intervention tools.  

Most educational programs for health care professionals allocate little time to teaching practitioners how to address the cause of disease and instead just focus on symptom suppression. Growing dissatisfaction with traditional medical and nutrition practices has created a demand for different educational pathways that incorporate such training.  The Wellness Forum Institute is grounded in the use of only the most rigorous and independent scientific standards for evaluating health information.  

Format: Classes are offered via “virtual classroom” or live and interactive teleconference calls.  Students anywhere can participate as long as they have access to a computer, email and can make long-distance calls. Detailed slides and course materials are provided. Due to the teaching format, we are able to recruit the best teachers in the world for all subjects. 

For more information, visit our website at www.wellnessforuminstitute.com email pampopper@msn.com or call 614 841-7700 

Certified through the Ohio State Board of Career Colleges  

Registration number 09-09-1908T

Certificate and Diploma Programs Offered Through The Wellness Forum Institute

The Diet and Lifestyle Intervention Course 

The Diet and Lifestyle Intervention Course is designed to teach health and fitness professionals the relationship between diet and lifestyle habits and health outcomes; to expose students to professionals who are successfully using informed decision-making and diet and lifestyle in health care delivery, and to teach specific and effective protocols for practice.  

The course is taught through a virtual classroom or interactive conference call. Prior to each call, participants are instructed to read the texts and are emailed the instructor’s slides and materials. The call is interactive and the participants can ask questions at any time.  

Upon completion of the course, the healthcare provider will be able to: Critically evaluate published research in order to make better recommendations to  patients about diet and health 

  • Better communicate with patients about the importance of diet and lifestyle when  making treatment decisions, and engage the patient in more active decision-making
  • Prescribe specific diet and lifestyle interventions for patients with chronic degenerative  diseases, and assist those patients in reducing or eliminating medications where  appropriate 
  • Develop relationships with providers who can assist in patient care outside of the  provider’s practice specialty or scope of practice
  • Establish a profitable practice using diet and lifestyle as the primary intervention tools

You do not have to be a practitioner to take this course; laypersons are welcome too! 

A more detailed description is available in the course catalog – to request one,  email pampopper@msn.com 

The Nutrition Educator Diploma Program

The Nutrition Educator Diploma Program is for individuals seeking a career in a nutrition-related field and who want an alternative to traditional dietetics. This program requires that students complete basic science courses that are more rigorous than those required for many undergraduate nutrition degrees; includes courses that combine nutritional science with strategies for assisting clients in achieving and maintaining optimal health and effective approaches for common degenerative conditions; includes many classes designed to teach practical skills needed for gainful employment; and concludes with 200 hours of practical experience during which a candidate must demonstrate his/her ability to work effectively in the nutrition education field.

Program Objectives: 

  • Provide candidates with a rigorous science-based education in nutrition
  • Teach students how to teach and incorporate dietary interventions for the prevention,  treatment, or reversal of common diseases  
  • Teach practical skills for making a living in the nutrition field 
  • Ensure that students understand public policy issues that affect nutrition and public  health 
  • Ensure that students understand how to work within their scope of practice, based on  their state of residence 

A more detailed description is available in the course catalog – to request one,  email pampopper@msn.com 

Why and How to Withdraw From Psychiatric Drugs

Research does not support the idea that “chemical imbalances in the brain” are the cause of mental illness. Yet today,  25% of Americans, including millions of children, are taking psychiatric drugs for conditions ranging from ADHD to schizophrenia. Research shows that psychiatric drugs are not effective  (barely better than placebo). Instead, the drugs have significant side effects that are often disabling and sometimes life-threatening. Furthermore, the drugs do not address the underlying causes of the individual’s suffering and impairment such as childhood or adult losses and trauma, emotional conflicts in the family, poor self-discipline, difficulties focusing and persisting, real-life crises, and self-defeating attitudes.  

This unique program was developed by the Wellness Forum Institute and psychiatrist Peter  Breggin, M.D., a leading promoter of empathic therapy and a pioneering researcher in the toxic effects of psychiatric drugs and how to withdraw from them. The course includes guidelines for prescribers, therapists, patients, and their families, with emphasis on a  collaborative effort that is empowering to the patient and family.  

The course fills an important need. Although there are many books and classes that address  aspects of drug withdrawal, there are no formal and comprehensive training programs that  teach practitioners, patients, and families “the whole story” – the actual causes of psychological  issues, the consequences of drugging, and effective methods for helping people to extract  themselves from “the psychiatric mill.” This is the first comprehensive training program that addresses all aspects of this issue.  

A more detailed description is available in the course catalog – to request one,  email pampopper@msn.com

Certified Health Educator Program 

You will learn: 

  • How to analyze and report findings of published studies and other health information in  order to guide patients/clients in making evidence-based decisions regarding their health
  • How to use a comprehensive, whole-person approach to help patients to improve their  health and which leads to better long-term outcomes 
  • How to operate a collaborative and education-based health-related practice
  • How to develop a profitable and sustainable business/practice 

Designation/benefits: 

  • Ability to use Certified Health Educator title 
  • Access to WFH informational databases for use in your practice/business
  • Option to become an affiliate and to increase practice revenue through memberships,  educational programs, products and other services offered through Wellness Forum Health 

A more detailed description is available in the course catalog – to request one,  email pampopper@msn.com

The Food Over Medicine Diet and Lifestyle License Program

Based on the concepts in the best-selling book Food Over Medicine: The  Conversation That Can Save Your Life, this program consists of a combination of live teleconference classes and online classes.  

Training modules include: 

  • Diet, Lifestyle Habits, and Health 
  • Research Basics 
  • Women’s Health 
  • Men’s Health 
  • Children’s Health 
  • Weight Loss: New Perspectives 
  • 6 Mentoring/Clinical Skills classes 

Students will also have access to Wellness Forum’s article and video libraries (over 1500  referenced articles and hundreds of educational videos) and twice monthly Q&A sessions and will receive a copy of Food Over Medicine. 

Upon completion, graduates will be able to offer The Food Over Medicine Diet and Lifestyle  Program to clients/patients. Slide sets and teaching materials will be provided, and workbooks are available for purchase.  

What you can do upon completing this course: 

  • Offer workshops to increase awareness about the relationship between diet and health Teach the Food Over Medicine course  
  • Develop and teach cooking classes 
  • Assist people in improving their health with information, assistance with diet change,  and one-on-one or group coaching 
  • Become an active participant in community efforts such as improving school food, or  starting a wellness program at your church 

Offered through a combination of online and teleconference classes Tuition: $2499 

For more information or to set up a time to talk by phone email pampopper@msn.com