Nutrition can be a confusing topic to study, because we’re always surrounded by opinion, theory, personal anecdote, and various advertising campaigns pushing books, documentaries, and products which promise the world. This presents questions: who is right, who should we believe?
This is why we are here.
BTN started its life in 2010 as ‘Body Type Nutrition’, a bespoke online coaching company started by Ben Coomber to work with clients 1-1 on their health and fitness goals. This quickly grew to a company with a team of 11 coaches, all coaching people to improved bodies and minds. After thousands of successful coaching sessions, Ben wanted to touch more lives and realised that the current BTN model could only go so far. Growing more and more passionate for education, it was decided that the most effective strategy for having lasting impact was to teach the next generation of people that could then coach and teach others, exponentially growing the impact of one simple message: good nutrition can change lives.
Thus in 2013 The Body Type Nutrition Academy was born, the first UK-based, 12-month online nutrition course. Starting from its first intake of around 20 students, this quickly grew until around 300 students per year were coming through our doors. Rather than sticking with what we know, however, the course has been developed since those early days to be more interactive, more extensive, and to include more and more practical steps that coaches can use with their clients.
And the name? Along the way even this changed, now simply being BTN. It’s been almost a decade since the company’s inception, and the evidence against using any kind of ‘body typing’ when working with clients has only gotten stronger. Wanting to stay in line with the evidence but also stick to our roots we settled on the abbreviation only – it’s a constant reminder to update our thinking and never stop questioning the current scientific consensus, but also to be honest and humble, especially when we may read or hear someone saying something that isn’t quite correct. We’re all still (and should never stop) learning.
Why did we create this? Why was nutrition education a better way for us to make an impact than coaching?
Because we felt frustrated. When we trained as nutrition coaches there were 3 options of courses:
• Cheap online courses where you took a test after reading a book and got a certificate
• Weekend or week-long training (often abroad) that, due to length, could only scratch the surface while costing a lot
• University education that cost thousands and involved 3 years away from home and work, all without a guarantee of being a good practitioner at the end
So, we decided to create the next solution in nutrition education; an online course that anyone speaking English could study, worldwide, in their own time. If we could teach 1000 people, and they could work with 100 people each, that’s 100,000 people affected – more than any single coach or coaching team could ever manage! Since then, we have taught over 2000 students worldwide to be Nutrition Coaches, including everyday people doing the course just for their own understanding and personal development, which is awesome. These awesome bunch are from 23 different countries across the globe.
We pride ourselves on being evidence based yet practically driven, all while balancing being globally accessible and genuinely supportive to our students.
Nutrition is a science, but its application is an art, and it’s upon this skilful blend that we pride ourselves, through our unique teaching style, diverse range of tutors and broad syllabus.
That’s why we say, Learn Nutrition, Change Lives.
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