The world of holistic nutrition can be daunting, but Jasperite Jenna Jackson believes she can change that.
The 24-year-old just finished up a three-year holistic nutrition program at Victoria’s Pacific Rim College. Rather than staying in the British Columbia city, the newly certified holistic nutritionist decided to come back to her hometown to share her wealth of knowledge.
Jackson is planning to host nutritional consultations and workshops here in Jasper starting this summer—making her one of the only holistic nutritionists in the area.
“Holistic nutrition is really huge over in Victoria, but it’s slowly becoming more and more popular over this way,” Jackson said. “So many people here are super active and already lead very healthy lifestyles, but I feel like Jasper is really missing nutrition and dietary counseling.”
For those not in the know, holistic nutrition is all about cleansing the body from the inside out by eating healthy food as close to its natural state as possible.
“Holistic basically means looking at the person as a whole and finding the root cause of their problems and coming up with a perfect fix,” Jackson said. “Everyone responds to food, supplements and herbs differently and that’s why it’s so important to really get to know the person and then you can tell them specifically what they need.”
While she hasn’t figured out all the logistics of her plan, Jackson said she will help clients with their dietary needs on an individual basis and pace to navigate their way to wellness. Right now, she’s toying with the idea of renting a clinical space in town and doing home visits.
“There’s so much stuff online about nutrition and for a lot of people all that information can be pretty overwhelming,” she said. “I see myself as a coach that helps people navigate their way through all this information.”
She said some of that coaching entails providing specific dietary overhauls and recommendations based on her clients’ personal needs and lifestyle.
“Patient compliance is really tough because a lot of the time you are taking out food groups that people eat most like gluten and dairy,” Jackson said. “With this healing you have to be really on it and you have to be really repetitive with it.
“You don’t just take one thing and you’re fine—you have to keep doing it for the healing to continue.”
Once she gets more established, Jackson envisions hosting workshops around nutritional education and all sorts of other topics from Chinese and herbal medicines to savvy meal recommendations. “The possibilities are endless about what I could do with workshops,” she said.
Growing up, Jackson was a competitive swimmer and part-time model. While both careers required her to keep her body in shape, Jackson said she was exposed to many people who took extreme and dangerous routes to stay thin. She said it is partially because of these experiences that she ended up diving into the once unfamiliar world of holistic nutrition.
“I’ve seen some really unhealthy ways of living and I was interested in finding out what it’s really like to live a truly healthy life,” she said.
Since word of her coming home has spread, Jackson said she has been greeted with nothing but intrigue and enthusiasm.
“People want to sit down and chat about making changes and how to support their lifestyles and diet,” she said. “Making the switch to a holistic approach would have people seeing better results in their marathons and all the other extreme sports people do in this area.
“This is something that’s really going to resonate well with the people of Jasper.”
For those who want to learn more, Jackson can be contacted through her website: www.alpenglownutrition.squarespace.com.
Kayla Byrne [email protected]
