Disillusioned With Lack Of Prevention In Budget And Sick Care System, Health Coach Takes Matters Into Her Own Hands.

Samantha McBride is a Men's Health and Wellbeing coach and passionate about people creating health not sickness. She was keen to see some more preventative measures towards health outlined in the budget, but it was no surprise that it is still not present with our spend still focussed on fixing problems, not creating solutions, within our sick care system.

In her own experience she is keen to see a more proactive health care system that focuses on getting the individual to understand better how to look after themselves, rather than rely on the system to fix them once broken.

She has been involved in establishing the Health Coaches Australia and New Zealand Association, as she feels coaching is an extremely useful tool to help create positive and meaningful behaviour change in individuals. The issue is there are no guidelines around what qualifications you require to be a part of that system and so as a means to support coaches, define some industry standards and grow awareness of the profession, hcanza.org was established and now has over 100 members.

Men's Health is her passion and she feels strongly that the wrong health messages are getting out there. It is not ALL about what we eat, how we move and taking a pill to fix problems, health changes start and are helped way earlier than that, by building communities of people that support each other in becoming more healthy.

Because of this, after running her own Building Better Blokes meetings and watching Match Fit on TV, she decided that she could bring all these elements together in the Men's Muster in Te Anau, a town really suffering post COVID, in June. She has been humbled by the time and energy people have given her to get the Muster going, from some amazing local supporters to the likes of Men's Health Week and Sir Graham Henry.

It is unusual to have an event, defined as a health event which is really more about bringing guys together to have fun, offering camaraderie and competition, and the chance to go home with some positive health messages under their belt.

She hopes it will be a model that can be repeated every year, and possibly in other areas as well, changes in health should be fun, in alignment with an individuals values and beliefs and be more about adding good stuff into our lives than denial. She hopes that by creating communities that look at health this way, as well as growing awareness of coaches to help guide people to find their own journeys to health, the long term rewards on our health care system could be phenomenal.

The Men's Muster is to take place in Te Anau, 17-19th June, early registrations essential.

“Men’s Health Week is recognised around the world each June, serving as an annual reminder that we’re not invincible, we don’t have all the answers and, really, our health is as much owned by those we love as by ourselves.”

Mark Sainsbury & Tim Greene

Directors, Men’s Health Week NZ

Find us at (www.mensmuster.com) or on Facebook

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