Nutrition coaching forms.
Ask what you’ll use.

01 / Overview

The forms, in order

A small practice can start with three: an intake that includes the health screen, an agreement, and a weekly check-in. Add the others as your process settles.

02 / Before the call

Enquiry form

The enquiry form only has to tell you whether a conversation is worthwhile. Keep it to five questions or fewer:

• Name and email address.
• What would you like help with?
• What have you already tried?
• When would you like to start?
• How did you hear about me?

Leave health questions out at this stage. You don’t need them to decide whether to have a call, and collecting sensitive information from people who may never become clients creates work and risk for no benefit.

03 / After signup

Intake questionnaire

The intake gives you enough context to make the first consultation useful. For each question, know what you’ll do with the answer; if you can’t say, leave it out.

Open questions give you more to work with than tick boxes. “Which part of your current routine feels hardest?” tells you more than a rating of your client’s diet out of ten.

04 / Suitability

Health screen

The health screen isn’t there to diagnose anything. Its job is to show whether coaching is suitable as planned, whether someone else should be involved, and what you need to work around.

Typical questions:

• Do you have any diagnosed medical conditions?
• Do you take any medication that affects appetite, weight or what you can eat?
• Are you pregnant, breastfeeding or planning a pregnancy?
• Do you have any diagnosed food allergies or intolerances?
• Are you currently under the care of a GP, dietitian or specialist for anything related to food or weight?
• Have you ever had an eating disorder, or do you have a difficult relationship with food? (Offer “I’d prefer to talk about this on a call” as an answer.)

Decide in advance what each answer means for you. Some mean you work alongside the client’s doctor or dietitian; some mean asking for medical clearance first; some mean the work is outside your scope and you refer. Writing that down before anyone fills in the form keeps your responses consistent.

If you also coach exercise, the PAR-Q+ is a widely used pre-participation screening questionnaire, published by the PAR-Q+ Collaboration at eparmedx.com. Exercise professionals can use it free for screening, but its terms say the form must not be altered, so use the official version rather than retyping it into your own template.

05 / Data protection

Consent and health information

Answers to a health screen are health information, and many countries give it extra protection.

• UK and Ireland. Health information is special category data. To use it you need a lawful basis and a separate condition, and where that condition is explicit consent, the ICO says it must be confirmed in a clear statement, name the type of information and be kept separate from other consents. Ireland applies the same EU rules; the Data Protection Commission’s guidance on legal bases covers special category data.
• Australia. Health information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act, and businesses that provide a health service are covered regardless of turnover. The OAIC’s health privacy guide includes nutritionists, gyms and weight-loss clinics among its examples, so it’s safest to assume the Act applies to you.
• United States. HIPAA applies only to covered entities and their business associates, which most independent coaches are not. State consumer health privacy laws can still apply, so check the rules where your clients live.

Wherever you work, a few habits help:

• Ask for less. Collect what you need to coach safely and nothing more.
• Explain it. A short privacy notice should say what you collect, why, who can see it, how long you keep it and how the client can ask for it to be deleted.
• Ask separately. Where you rely on consent, ask for it on its own, with a box the client ticks themselves, not bundled into accepting your terms.
• Keep it in one place. Store answers in one system with restricted access and two-step sign-in, rather than scattered across email, messages and downloads.
• Delete on schedule. Decide how long you keep records after coaching ends, and stick to it.

This is general information, not legal advice. If you work with clinical conditions or in several countries, take advice on what applies to you.

06 / Before coaching starts

Coaching agreement

The agreement sets expectations before anything goes wrong. It usually covers:

• what’s included, and what isn’t: coaching is not medical care, diagnosis or treatment;
• how and when you’ll be in contact, and how quickly you reply;
• check-in expectations, and what happens when one is missed;
• start and end dates, renewals, cancellation and refunds;
• how clients may use resources you share: for example, for their personal use only;
• how you handle their information, with a link to your privacy notice.

Have a solicitor or adviser check your agreement once, then reuse it. Our onboarding guide covers how to send it with a clear first step.

07 / Every week

Weekly check-in

A check-in only helps if clients complete it, so keep it short enough to finish in a few minutes. A useful structure:

Make measurements optional. Some clients find weighing themselves useful; for others it gets in the way. Agree at the start which measures, if any, you’ll track. The open questions usually tell you more than the numbers, and the onboarding guide includes a neutral message for a missed check-in.

08 / Every few months

Progress review

A review steps back from week-to-week detail. Run it every four to twelve weeks, depending on the length of your programme, and compare the answers with the intake:

• Looking back at what you wanted from coaching, what has changed?
• Which habits feel settled now, and which still take effort?
• What’s still hard?
• What would you like to focus on next?
• Is there anything about how we work together that you’d like to change?

Use the answers to agree the next phase, and record what you agreed.

09 / When coaching ends

Closing feedback

A short form at the end tells you what to keep and what to change:

• What helped you most?
• What would you change about the coaching?
• Which resources did you actually use?
• Would you be happy for me to quote your feedback? If so, how would you like to be named?

Ask for permission to quote as a separate question, and use only what the client agrees to. Tell them, too, what happens to their information now: how long you keep it, and how to ask for it to be deleted sooner.

10 / Tools

Building the forms

Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, Jotform and Typeform all work, as do the form features in many coaching apps. Before you choose, check where the tool stores responses, who in your business can see them, whether you can turn on two-step sign-in, and how easily you can export or delete one client’s answers.

Then keep the answers with the client. Intake notes, check-ins and agreed actions are most useful in one place, next to the client’s record, where you’ll see them before each conversation.