Do you work hard to pack a healthy lunch only to arrive at work to find doughnuts in the staff room? You have plenty of food in your lunch, you don’t need to grab a doughnut but every time you walk by the door, there they are, calling to you with their delicious frosted tops.
If this is a common scenario at your workplace, you may want to take a few steps to help more fruit and veggies arrive in the staffroom. Research shows that even though we are armed with the knowledge of what to eat for good health, and have the best intentions to eat well, accessibility and cost both weigh heavily in our decision making process, making easy to grab, free doughnuts difficult to pass up.
Good food at the workplace makes good sense. The right food gives us energy so we can work better, be more productive and actually enjoy our work lives more. To this end, the Western and Northern Canadian Collaborative for Healthy Living has put out a guide called Eat Smart, Meet Smart to help employers provide healthy foods at meetings and events.
The Eat Smart Meet Smart guide is a go to guide made to help employers plan to offer nutritious foods at staff meetings and events. The guide offers practical advice like which foods are the healthiest options from each food group, how much food to serve at a meeting and how to talk to caterers about healthy options.
Nutritious foods at meetings can mean healthy leftovers in the staff room. Getting nutritious foods into meetings, however, often takes a passionate employee or a forward thinking employer. Next time you have a staff meeting, put food on the agenda. Many organizations are making policies around supporting healthy eating at the workplace. It doesn’t make good business sense to have staff nodding off after filling up on sugar, and it doesn’t take much planning to serve up wholesome nutritious foods that promote health.
Check out Eat Smart Meet Smart for yourself. Share it with your colleagues and with your employer.
