“Guiding the Next Generation to Wellness”
We sit down with Dhari AlKhulaifi, a passionate advocate for health and wellness, who has made significant strides in promoting a balanced lifestyle among young people. From his early experiences growing up in a health-conscious family to his current endeavors in personal training and education, Dhari shares his journey of inspiring the next generation to make informed decisions about their well-being. He discusses his innovative approach to fitness, his dedication to addressing prevalent misconceptions in the industry, and his aspirations to expand his influence through workshops and publications. Join us as Dhari reflects on his impactful work and his vision for the future of health and wellness education.
What were your early experiences with health and wellness?
Well, I always knew that this area was important to me, of course, growing up, healthy food was a big part of my family life. I learned early on to appreciate the reasons behind making healthy choices, which made it easier for me to stick to them when I grew up. So I realized that a well-rounded approach to wellness wasn’t just about avoiding certain foods and going to the gym, but about making informed decisions based on understanding, in every aspect of your life. This sort of laid the groundwork for everything and set the stage for what I wanted to do in life.
Can you talk about what built and developed your approach to health, and your further aspiration to pursue personal training?
By age 14, I was helping to coach kids at holiday camps and hosting neighborhood sessions where I’d talk with kids about topics that parents really want their children to take seriously. I knew I wanted to pursue this more, so while still in high school, I told my parents I wanted to complete a personal training diploma, and in the afternoons after school, I would be working on attaining the personal training diploma.
What is one misconception that you find prevalent in the field of health and fitness?
I think it’s important to question certain misconceptions about health and fitness that are so prevalent among us. Every young teenager wants to grow up and bulk up, but it’s important to move away from the glorified notion of bulking up and being huge, as this promotes unhealthy ideas such as steroid use and harmful eating habits. I think these trends overshadow the importance of actual functional health, so instead, I promote understanding all aspects of being healthy and building a solid foundation that supports long-term health and balance, and I created the program putting this in mind, to promote proper health and functional fitness.
Elaborate on your program
My approach comes from a realization that often, training programs aimed at children overly focus on the exercise aspect, while neglecting the crucial educational component that actually helps kids understand their food, habits, and the effect these have on their bodies and lives. Rather than merely encouraging exercise for a one hour session, I want to provide and emphasize a lifelong understanding of multiple topics that impact our overall health.
What are some of the topics you discuss in the program?
In high school I noticed friends going to the gym, and then after, eating junk and playing video games all night instead of going to sleep. So they had it all wrong, a healthy life has many components to it, and I find that this is often ignored, so I wanted to create something that helps our youth make more informed decisions and build lasting habits. I target topics that I find highly relevant and important to target in today’s world for kids and teenagers. Obviously, you have the main ones, food, healthy choices, and fitness. But there are other related issues that especially affect our youth, like vaping, video game addiction, sleeping well, peer pressure, caffeine, and how social media affects well-being. I focus on addressing broader issues that follow us beyond the gym or the dining table.
How do you believe people, and peer pressure influence decision making at a young age?
The people we meet and are close with influence our choices and affect us—whether we realize it or not. This is why I created this program: to bring a positive influence to children and provide an example of a healthy and balanced lifestyle. To make it seem doable. Research shows that after a certain age, kids often attach themselves to their peers rather than their parents, and unfortunately, they might adopt negative habits from harmful peer pressure. If your friends are all addicted to video games or smoking, chances are, you might be influenced in the same direction. So this is my purpose, creating an understanding of negative influences and a resilience against them, and then providing a positive influence.
What motivated you to write a children’s book?
Well I wrote this book during the beginning of COVID, and at this time I was finding new ways to entertain myself, my sister and I started illustrating books for ourselves as a way to pass time. Eventually, we wanted to create a purposeful coloring book for children as I realized the importance of making these topics accessible to children.
What are your books about?
My sister and I modeled these books after our mom’s coloring books that we read when we were even younger, and we chose topics that we felt would be especially impactful for our fellow children. So writing these books was a natural extension of what I found interesting and important to cover. The books target topics like healthy food choices, peer pressure, marketing, and addiction.
Are you planning to do any workshops in Kuwait?
During my visit to Kuwait last year, I did a couple of workshops, and I highly enjoyed it. Of course, I’m planning to do more, and it’s one of the biggest things I’m looking forward to. Some of my greatest memories as a child are going with my mom and attending the workshops she did, so I can’t wait to do more in Kuwait.
It’s commendable to see young people engage in such meaningful work. How was your experience with these projects, and what did you learn from it?
I think living abroad, it was normal for everyone to participate in something at a young age, and I found myself lucky enough to be able to start in a field that I was passionate about, which was the wellbeing and health of our next generation. So not only am I promoting a healthy lifestyle, but I’m also a big proponent of our youth getting involved in projects that interest them, as this is good for character building and development.
What are your plans for the future?
Right now, I’m focusing on the present, but I’ve really enjoyed tutoring while living in the US and the UK, and the workshops I did in Kuwait over the past year were particularly rewarding. I’m especially looking forward to hosting more of the workshops in Kuwait and Dubai. Besides working on my program, which I’m excited about sharing in the coming months, I’ve recently been hosting online sessions where I get to cover the topics in my program with kids. So even with my busy university schedule, I’m excited about the chance to travel, host more workshops, and continue these online sessions.
