Walmart Just Proved Health Coaches Right

Michelle Leotta:
Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast. I'm Michelle Leotta, ex-corporate girl turned certified health coach with over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice. I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom.

I created a health coach power community over a decade ago to make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.

Walmart popped up in the news recently with their plan to eliminate synthetic food dyes from store brands, and they're not the first. Since earlier this year, we've been seeing similar announcements from Craft and General Mills, PepsiCo, and other food companies. There's pressure from the government and the whole Make America Healthy Again movement.

There's pressure from consumers like you and me who don't want a bunch of additives in our food. One thing's for sure. The conversation around food has absolutely changed in the last 15 to 20 years, and health coaches, we have played an important role. Back in 2009, when I started out as a health coach, nobody was talking about food dyes.

I definitely also remember that no one knew what kale was. If you said kale, they were like, huh, is that a vegetable? Like they had never heard of it. And if I mentioned the idea of buying organic, woo, I would have to explain what that meant. People didn't know. I mean, it was all new. The idea of being healthier wasn't new.

I mean, people cared about their health in a Lean Cuisine, frozen dinner kind of way, but the idea of food being clean, that was very, very niche. It was very on the fringe. This is, by the way, one of the costs of being ahead of the game. You might feel today, like no one in your life understands why you do what you do as a health coach.

People may even roll their eyes at you as they pop another PPI. I've lived that. I know how it feels, but can't let it get you down when you're in a business that's like. On the cutting edge, and we are, I mean, if you are old enough, if you are old like me, you can think back to when, I don't know, Microsoft was first introduced, cutting edge.

Not everyone understood. Now everybody knows Microsoft, so a lot of people aren't gonna get it when we're talking about reading labels or avoiding pharmaceuticals or counting macros or whatever, because it takes time, you know, it takes time to shift perspectives. And that is exactly what we've been doing for the last 15 to 20 years that I've been in this industry.

And it is so exciting. I mean, look around, organic is everywhere now. You see kale salads on takeout menus, and what could be more mainstream than Walmart reformulating their store brands to remove artificial dyes? I think it's fascinating. Now, of course, I realize there are pros and cons to this whole food dye thing.

Big real retailers like Walmart are going to continue putting profits first. Of course, uh, getting rid of certain food dies. While that doesn't automatically make anyone healthier, it might even make some people think that their junk food is healthier when it's not. New dyes will get introduced at some point, I'm sure, and then we have to think, are they really gonna be any better?

Back in April of this year, 2025, we had a whole conversation about this in our Health Coach Power Community Facebook group, which, by the way, you can join us for free over there at HealthCoachPowerCommunity.com. And here's what some of our health coaches had to say about the government's push to remove food dyes.

Susie said it's a positive move, but honestly, we shouldn't be eating those foods anyway. Fruit loops without dyes is better, but still a poor choice for nourishment. Real fruits, vegetables, proteins, nuts, and seeds don't have dyes to begin with, and we need to focus on promoting and improving the quality of those foods, not shelf-stable foods with or without dyes.

Debbie said, I'm thrilled that food dies are going to be removed. The immediate transformation of my son as a toddler onward when ingesting artificial colors was dramatic, and it wasn't pretty. Heather said, this subject should have never become political. This is by far the greatest bipartisan issue and should never be a taboo subject.

And Shelly said, interestingly, there are no FDA regulations passed for this. It's just an agreement. I hope the big food companies will follow through, but without any regulations. I'm not sure we should be celebrating yet. Well, that was back in April, and now it looks like it's happening. As for bipartisan, I found articles about Walmart's move their announcement on NBC, CNN,and even Fox News.

So here's what I want you to hear today. Health coaches have helped make this shift happen. We have had a massive ripple effect, not just with other earthy crunchy people like us, not just with other health nerds, with everyone. This is happening at a national level. Our work isn't done, of course, but think of this: we have a huge opportunity right now.

Okay. For many, many years, health coaches primarily existed and worked on the East and West coast. Like if you looked at a map of where all the health coaches were, you'd see 'em all over here in these blue states and all over here in these blue states. In fact, when I became a health coach, there were only two schools that I could choose from.

One was in New York. One was in California, and that's it. In the middle of the country, they were just far, far less likely to buy into the whole clean eating movement back in the early two thousands. But today, with the rise of Make America healthy again, regardless of your or my personal politics, it has meant some shifting attitudes towards health in all those states in the middle.

So it's a big opportunity for health coaches as an industry, 'cause we can tap into this interest in health. We can serve a wider variety of clients who these days may be a little more apt to listen. I think health coaches can actually bridge the gap between the right and the left at this moment of history.

Something to think about. The opportunity is there. But this isn't about politics. The point is the conversations that we have matter. I remember, this is quite a few years ago, I was working with a client. She was very proud of herself. She said she was being very good, and I say that with air quotes, very good, because instead of tartar sauce, she was choosing to use cocktail sauce on her shrimp at all the holiday parties.

And I said, okay, why don't you read the cocktail sauce ingredient label to me? She was shocked not only at the high fructose corn syrup, which is probably like the second ingredient, but the red 40. Who knew? As health coaches, like we get to go in the trenches with our clients. We aren't typically, I mean, sometimes some of us, but we aren't typically sitting on panels at big food industry conferences, but we are there.

With our clients in the kitchen or at that holiday party, or words are in their mind when they go to the grocery store. So you and me, thousands of coaches like us, we've helped shift the culture. We've helped shift what normal looks like. Every time you help a client read a food label, [00:08:00] and I, if you have done, you know, done it once, I've done it a million times, I bet you have too.

Maybe someone realizes that some of those ingredients they're contributing to their symptoms. Hmm. And every time you share a post about what's in those little 100-calorie snack packs, are they really a healthy choice? And every time you have a conversation about ingredients and real food and farmers' markets and why it all matters.

It might feel like a single conversation, maybe even one that falls on deaf ears. Sometimes it does, but you're planting a seed, and that seed spreads. We're seeing it happen. One person talks to another, one client becomes an advocate. One classroom party maybe swaps out the cupcakes for fresh fruit skewers.

Which, by the way, is totally what I sent my kids to school with when they were in kindergarten. Rainbow fruit skewers. They're so pretty. They're so easy. The kids love them. Anyway, over time, people start to think about these things because we have been talking about them incessantly, annoyingly, who cares?

We we're making the conversation happen. Doctors aren't talking about this. The pediatrician isn't talking about this. We are. So my 70-year-old client on Long Island, the one with the cocktail sauce, you know, she started buying cocktail sauce that didn't have red food dye in it, and that's a start. By the way.

She also cleared up major digestive issues. It was tremendous, and she lost 20 pounds through our work together. Her buying habits changed, and when that happens, little by little, brands pay attention. They pay attention to where the money is and where the money's going. Right. Walmart even changes. That's what I've seen in my 16 years as a health coach.

I know you got into this business to help people. Me too. And when we think, am I helping people, we usually think about it in terms of how many clients we have. We don't always recognize ourselves or like give ourselves a pat on the back for how many lives, how many, many lives we've even indirectly influenced.

All our clients and how they go into the world, and then they influence their families and their friends, and yes, even politics. And suddenly our work has this undeniable ripple effect. Now, if you're looking for more clients to create that initial wave of the ripple effect, I have a new free resource for you.

Go to HealthCoachPower.com/Clients. Get my free roadmap to more clients, more income, and more impact. Again, that's health coach power.com/clients. Alright, so where do we go from here? What's next? Maybe you're gonna find yourself on a big stage where you can talk about issues like this, or on TV, or quoted in a big article.

Yes, go for it. But for most health coaches, we're gonna make the biggest difference when we have the opportunity to work closely with our clients and have those conversations about cocktail sauce, and you don't need a million followers to make that happen. You just need to offer your services to the people who are looking for help.

Like I'm thinking about my client, Jennifer, she did this a couple days ago. Now she's booking consults. People are looking for help. In last week's episode, I talked about why people aren't necessarily looking for or Googling like I need a health coach. But they are absolutely out there Googling, do I have ADHD?

And why am I so exhausted? So when you show up, you help with those specific big problems, that's when they're gonna listen to you. Remember, Walmart, it's exciting. It's just one big visible sign of a much bigger movement, and you are a part of it. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of all of us. Thank you for being here.

And if you want help connecting with more clients, go to HealthCoachPower.com/Clients.

Thank you so much for listening to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. Please take a moment, leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us reach more coaches and allows me to bring you this free content every week to join us live. Ask your questions and have a direct line to me. Join our free Facebook group at HealthCoachPowerCommunity.com.