Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention after the Game Ends: The Emerging Role of Certified Health Education Specialists in Wellness Coaching for Retired College Student-Athletes

ABSTRACT

Former college student-athletes encounter unique health-related challenges following athletic retirement. Many retired student-athletes adopt sedentary lifestyles that can lead to long-term health problems, while others struggle to maintain good mental health due to issues associated with resolving their own athletic identity. Retired student-athletes who are able to successfully transfer their athletic identity into life after college sports are less likely to engage in chronic disease risk behaviors. Unfortunately, there is a relative lack of personal health and wellness programs for this vulnerable subgroup of the college population, which is concerning given the large number and high proportion of retired college student-athletes who are highly susceptible to chronic health issues. It is important that appropriate resources are made available to dissuade retired student-athletes from living unhealthy lifestyles, while at the same time encouraging them to actively pursue wellness following college. Currently, there is a unique opportunity to improve holistic wellness among retired college student-athletes through “coaching” them to live healthy lifestyles after their athletic career is over. Certified Health Education Specialists can play a key role in planning, implementing, and evaluating multi-dimensional wellness coaching programs that address the unmet health promotion needs of retired college student-athletes.

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Acknowledgments

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the American Athletic Conference Academic Consortium.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was supported by the American Athletic Conference Academic Consortium, through a grant to the Institution(s).