Sam Wood’s wellness programme looks to address New Zealand’s obesity epidemic

Celebrity personal trainer Sam Wood is to launch his ‘28 by Sam Wood’ in New Zealand, aiming to contribute to the reversal of the country’s obesity and inactivity challenges.

Acquired by Melbourne-founded genomics company myDNA in a $US50 million deal in May 2022, New Zealand will be the first international market for the programme which also has plans to expand into the United States, Canada and Europe.

With ‘28 by Sam Wood’ used by almost a million Australians to date, Wood, who is also a best-selling author and has over 1.1 million followers on his social platforms, is aiming to recruit some of New Zealand’s top trainers and nutritionists as content creators for a global audience.

He says a combination of DNA profiling, artificial intelligence (AI), app gamification and wearable tech is set to offer a new methodology to help fight the obesity epidemic and associated co-morbidities such as diabetes and heart disease.

Wood says the current model was developed following research from more than 50,000 personal training sessions over 15 years with his clients, which showed that outcomes were greater when support infrastructure was provided outside the gym.

He explains “what I realised was that during the sessions they could remain motivated but there was no adherence once they went home.

“So we designed the current programme to focus on their fitness from a mental health and mindset perspective as well as guidance on nutrition, provision of recipes, workouts and goal setting.

“In the future, the customised nature of the platform is set to be integrated with DNA insights creating highly personalised workout and nutrition programmes for users.

“New Zealand’s quite similar to Australia in that we sort of pat ourselves on the back a bit and promote life down under as outdoorsy, rugged and healthy. We tend to look at the UK and the USA, saying ‘You guys, you’ve got some work to do’ but the statistics are clearly showing we are pretty much just as bad.

“I think we need to acknowledge where we sit with obesity on a global scale as those statistics are really scary. So it’s time we gave ourselves a bit of tough love and stopped living in denial.”

According to latest data from the Ministry of Health, New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate among the 38 member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with rates continuing to increase. One in three (33%) adult New Zealanders are classified as obese, up from 29% a decade ago.

Image: Sam Wood. Credit: 28 by Sam Wood.