15 Documentaries to Inspire Healthy Living
Need some inspiration to start building healthy habits? Here are 15 of the best documentaries to inspire healthy living for creative minds.
It can be tough starting the path towards healthy living and building healthy habits. These health documentaries show the power of the human spirit and different creative ways to get in shape. Whether you’re just starting or have been working a while to support your creative life with healthier habits, these documentaries can inspire you to make the changes needed or motivation to keep going.
Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable (2018)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Everyone faces challenges. Get inspired to follow your passion and overcome challenges.
After losing an arm to a shark attack at age 13, Bethany Hamilton refuses to give up her dreams of being a professional surfer. Becoming one of the most accomplished athletes of her generation, this documentary explores what inspires her to overcome challenges to follow her dreams in surfing, motherhood, and more.
The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young (2014)
Why Creatives Should Watch: A unique and challenging marathon about pushing your limits and never giving up.
A famous prison escape sparks the idea for a cult-like race that has seen only 10 finishers in its first 25 years. This award-winning, oddly inspiring, and wildly funny documentary reveals the sports world’s most guarded secret.
Bikes vs. Cars (2015)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Rethink how you get around and its role in your healthy and creative lifestyle.
Bikes vs. Cars is a documentary about the bike and what an amazing tool for change it can be. It highlights a conflict in city planning between bikes, cars, and a growing reliance on fossil fuels.
Hungry for Change (2012)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Useful info to support mindful eating for better healthy living.
Exposes shocking secrets the diet, weight loss and food industries don’t want you to know about deceptive strategies designed to keep you coming back for more. Find out what’s keeping you from having the body and health you deserve.
Marathon Challenge (2007)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Learn how anyone can drastically change their lifestyle to support healthy habits and accomplish great things.
Explore the lives of 13 people from diverse backgrounds as they train for the Boston marathon, including a woman running in memory of her mother, a single working mum, and a former NFL linebacker. Marathon Challenge shows that anyone with the right training, support, and motivation can accomplish great things.
Enlighten Up! (2012)
Why Creatives Should Watch: A charming exploration of self-fulfillment through yoga that uses curiosity to explore this type of healthy living.
Filmmaker Kate Churchill has a theory that the practice of yoga can transform just about anyone. Skeptic Nick Rosen has his doubts, but agrees to be the filmmaker’s guinea pig. Churchill immerses Rosen in yoga, then follows him around the world to meet with celebrity yogis, true believers and true kooks.
Cooked (2016)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Exploring the cultural anthropology of cooking to inspire healthy cooking, eating, and creative expression in the kitchen.
As he tries his hand at baking, brewing and braising, acclaimed food writer Michael Pollan explores how cooking transforms food and shapes our world.
That Sugar Film (2014)
Why Creatives Should Watch: An entertaining and informative look into the hidden sugar in everyday food products and the health problems caused by high sugar consumption.
Damon Gameau embarks on an experiment to document the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body. This healthy living documentary is a look at the effects of eating supposedly healthy foods that contain high amounts of sugar. While fruits and vegetables have many benefits, their high sugar counts may be dangerous. What do you really know about sugar?
E-Motion (2014)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Shows how emotions affect the human body and how learning to replace negative emotions can impact physical improvement.
E-Motion is a factual documentary that explores how human emotions affect the physiology of the human body and how once negative emotions are replaced with positive emotions bona fide physical changes occur. A team of emotion experts from around the world share their wisdom and negative emotion clearing methods to show humanity the path to health and enlightenment.
Free Solo (2018)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, and exploration of both the capabilities of the human spirit and a celebration of U.S. parks and wilderness.
In this awe-inspiring National geographic Documentary, Alex Honnold, an American rock climber, attempts to conquer the first free solo climb of famed El Capitan’s 900-metre vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park. This health and adventure documentary is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an inspiring look into the creative life of an athlete who exceeds what is thought possible.
Forks Over Knives (2011)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Explores the health benefits of changing from an animal-based to a plant-based diet.
Examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.
The Game Changers (2018)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Look into the lives and healthy habits of famous athletes, creatives, scientists, and more to inspire healthy living.
A UFC fighter’s world is turned upside down when he discovers an elite group of world-renowned athletes and scientists who prove that everything he had been taught about protein was a lie.
Hood to Coast (2011)
Why Creatives Should Watch: See what everyday people can accomplish with the right motivation and support from friends and family.
This character-driven documentary follows four unlikely teams (twelve amateur runners) on an epic journey to conquer the world’s largest relay race. Every year, hundreds of teams of runners form bonds as they follow roads from Mount Hood in Oregon to the Pacific Coast, a total of 197 miles. Across challenging terrain, battling the elements and changing weather, everyday people push themselves to do extraordinary things. This healthy living documentary is a reminder that you can do anything and overcome any challenge, especially when surrounded by friends.
How to Cook Your Life (2007)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Learn cooking and healthy eating from a zen perspective.
Zen is a practice to heal hearts and minds and connect with the world. Achieving this quality of mind is more than practicing meditation. It’s mindfulness in everyday activities, including cooking. How to Cook Your Life is a healthy living documentary about how a Zen priest and cookbook author in San Francisco uses Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.
Bicycle Dreams (2009)
Why Creatives Should Watch: Discover how cyclists overcome physical, emotional, and motivational challenges from one of the toughest bicycle races in the world.
Race Across America is considered one of the toughest bicycle races in the world. In this documentary, riders try to cross the US in ten days across harsh terrain, mountains, brutal weather conditions, and sleep deprivation. On top of that, several days into the race, Bob Breedlove, a race veteran and endurance cycling legend is killed in a head-on collision with a pickup truck, and the other riders must deal with the aftermath of the accident and decide whether to continue the race.
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
