This blog post documents my experience with NHE, the National Health Educators.

About NHE Certifications
Lack of National Recognition and Legitimacy
President of National Health Educators-Jay White
My Personal Experiences with NHE Certirfication

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About NHE Certifications:

The company has numerous complaints against them registered through the Better Business Bureau and, at the time of this writing, lists them as "not BBB accredited." Many of the responses NHE lists with the BBB are not attempts to legitimate their credibility within the fitness industry, but simply confirms that they are offering an exam that the customer has paid them to take, and they gave them the exam, therefore they fulfilled their contractual agreement.

There is also a lengthy, heated discussion on Scam.Com whether the company is legitimate, and share their personal credentials and negative experience with NHE and its staff. Other individuals vigorously defend NHE, primarily saying disparaging things about those individuals, as well as other fitness credentialing agencies, with a similar nasty tone as the e-mail I received from their HR department (which I have posted below). There are numerous complaints on RipoffReport.com. As I describe below, the president of the company, Jay White, has a long history of allegations of scams and directors of other short-lived certification agencies.

NHE is listed in Linked In, however, the people that claim NHE is a great company appear not to be real people. For example, one individual lists his employment as CEO of "Ford Fitness Concepts," listed in Akron, IA, Sioux Falls, SD, and Seattle, WA, and this company does not exist according to the Secretary of State for all three states. Those same people post unprofessional statements about competing certification agencies.

Similarly, the company's web sites lists an anonymized address as the registrant and administrative contact:

nationalhealtheducators.com whois record 123 Privacy Lane Private, CA 92656 +123.4567890

nhecertification.com whois record Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0120323893 96 Mowat Ave Toronto, ON M6K 3M1 +1.4165385457

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Lack of National Accreditation Recognition:

Most professional or technical jobs have an organization with degreed, credentialed faculty who design the curriculum and stand by that curriculum and organization. Often there are universities who cooperate with these organizations to support research, development and training. There is also a board for any legitimate organization. The most well-known fitness organizations have each of these, and you can find them detailed on their web site, with the dominant organizations being ACSM, NASM, NCSA and ACE. In the case of NHE, there are no such legitimations--there is no listed board, and no listed experts who approve of the curriculum or organization on its Web site. Similarly, reference materials from these long-standing organizations have citations to peer-reviewed publications for the information they use to train, such as physiology information, nutritional information, studies on resistance training efficacy, etc. Finally, NHE is not registered with any of the nationally recognized organizations NCCA, IHRSA or NBFE, which oversee businesses who offer certifications for health and fitness professionals.

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President of National Health Educators-Jay White

I inquired with the Calfornia Attorney General about NHE's failure to register with the Secretary of State of California. NHE responded that they do not need to register with the state, however, they confirmed that they are registered with Orange County, where they are located. The response letter was signed by, "President, Jay White." However, he is not listed on the NHE web site. Since 2003 he has registered as the principal for 7 businesses in Orange County, and allegations associate him with several other businesses (listed below).

Businesses registered to Jay White by the Orange County Recorder

20036967442	National Trainers Association	12/8/2003	12/8/2008
20046970751	Scirion Institute	1/12/2004	1/12/2009
20066069718	Battle Tattle	4/24/2006	4/24/2011
20086154217	National Health Educators	5/1/2008	5/1/2013
20096191211	NHE Certificate	4/21/2009	4/21/2014
20076116949	SSL Corporate Fitness	06/12/2007	06/12/2012
20066096214	SIEP Certifications	12/20/2006	12/20/2011

He is currently listed with Manta as the Principal of Educator CPR. With Orange County there is a business with a similar name registered to Dia White as the principal, who is listed with the following 3 businesses, all listed as expired.

20046003451	fitnesscareer.com	10/5/2004	10/5/2009
20046003450	SIEP Certifications	10/6/2004	10/6/2009
20066096250	CPR Educator	12/21/2006	12/21/2011

Many of the addresses for the businesses associated with Jay White go to the same place, 23411 Aliso Viejo Parkway Aliso Viejo, CA 92656, which is within walking distance from where the NHE Web site currently says the business is located (95 Argonaut).

Jay White is listed on "ripoff" and "scam" web sites that claim he is associated with the following businesses
Dynamic Seminars/National Fitness and Health Advisory Board
Dynamic Inc
Dynamic Wellness
Dynamic
SSL Fitness
In the Dynamic Seminars link above, the alleged victim copy/pastes an email from Mr. White, who claims to be the Director of Operations for National Board Certifications at a web site that is defunct, as is each of the above web sites listed for these companies. None of them are listed in the county recorder's office.

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My personal experiences with NHE Certifications:

My background is degrees in chemistry, psychology, ethics, and sociology, with several years at the Indiana University School of Medicine studying medical neuroscience, certification by the American Council on Excercise, and several years personal training experience. I currently teach at the university level, both neuroscience and health sociology.

I received numerous e-mails for several months from NHE inviting me to apply for a position. I resisted because I could find very little information about them, except numerous individuals who posted their belief that the company was a scam. There were similar posts about their expensive exams and training guides, and the lack of gyms thatrecognize NHE certification.

I applied for the position of Content Writer, and was told I had to pass the Master Trainer Certification exam, and that they would waive the exam fee, but that I should buy the study guide for $300. Numerous internet sites claimed you could not pass the exam without purchasing the study guide. The NHE site itself clarified that purchasing the study guide was optional, but instead, listed about 60 medical textbooks you could read instead (literally). Purchasing the study guide meant you could take the exam three times for free. The study guide contained errors and controversial training/nutrition advice, especially about supplements. You were instructed to schedule your own exam time, which had to be on a Sunday morning at 8am. I took the exam twice. Many of the questions ask you tedium from the study guide that is irrelevant for the trainer. It asks you to "fill in the blank" to a sentence that seems to have little meaning and could be replaced with any number of reasonable words--when I went back to review the study guide after the exam, I found several of these very odd sentences they expected you to fill out. No trainer or nutritionist could have reasonably come up with the expected words given the lack of information in the sentence.

The exam is 2-hrs long, and both times I took the exam, on the last page, I had a "Web-page load error" and could not get back into the exam. Both times I received a lengthy e-mail telling me my exam was "unauthorized" for one of the reasons below (one of the censored reasons below is simply internet problems, like a page-load error), and no futher explanation for which of these was the problem.