Nutrition Education at Workplace: Why is it important?
Isn’t it quite evident that your workplace is more or less your second home? And sometimes it so happens that you end up spending more time there than you do at your house. These long hours spent at work and food choices made during those hours can significantly impact your health and lifestyle either for good or bad!
Since the employees are usually completely invested in their work, they can barely focus on making the right food choices or pay attention to what they eat for meals and snacks. They also succumb to unhealthy food choices either due to peer pressure or ordering food with co-workers quite often while giving little to no thought about the kind of food they consume at work. Following the right nutrition and diet habits can help to boost the health of the employees which can lead to improved focus, productivity, engagement and reduce the number of sick leaves or absenteeism due to ill health. Wellness programs are designed by organizations to promote good habits and minimize the occurrence and impacts of bad or unhealthy habits.
(For a quick list of key takeaways, check towards the end of the article)
Nutrition education should be an integral part of a wellness program, as it can be used as a tool to help employees make informed choices while at work as well as outside of work. It is an effort made to educate the employees on the importance of nutrition, the effects of nutrition imbalances, the impact of unhealthy choices on health, and how to imbibe the right habits and practices to boost their well-being. By implementing a health and wellness program for employees at the workplace, it is possible to promote healthy eating at work. When they are not at work, do they still make the right choices or implement what they learn about making the right choices? Leaning towards unhealthy dietary practices outside of work can still affect the health and well-being of employees which can reduce the impact of intervention programs.
Health and nutrition interventions are more effective when the individuals know why making the right choices are necessary and how these choices can benefit their health and well-being. Nutrition education is important not only to help employees make healthier choices but also to change their preconceptions on food, nutrition, and healthy living by educating them on the topics such as:
What you need to know about basic nutrition
The first important thing on the nutrition education checklist should be about creating awareness on the basics of nutrition such as macro-nutrients, micro-nutrients, calorie intake, energy balance, physical activity, and individualized approach to meeting your daily nutritional needs. Nutrition education helps the employees to understand the problems that are associated with eating too much or too little and how dietary habits can affect their long-term health. It creates a platform to analyze their food patterns, eating habits, and how they can be changed to optimize their health.
How to cultivate sustainable and healthy eating habits
We do know what foods are required to promote good health, but how often do we make the choice of eating right? Assuming that one cheat day will not affect your week-long efforts of eating right, can motivate you to have many more. The choice of foods and the quantity or portions you consume can affect your eating patterns. It is not necessary to completely eliminate the foods you enjoy, but rather consuming them in moderation is the key. Nutrition education can help employees not only focus on what to eat but also explain how food can impact their physical and mental well-being. This understanding can help to bring about sustained changes in their eating behaviors.
How to decode food labels
How often do we check the packed foods for their nutrition labels? More often than not, we tend to ignore it, not because it does not matter but because we do not understand how to read food labels. Nutrition education helps to keep individuals aware of ways and methods to understand and analyze the information on the labels to help them make healthier food choices for themselves not only at work but also outside of work.
Easy hacks to help you stay healthy
The reason most of us resort to eating out or eating processed foods is that it takes minimal efforts to procure them, whereas cooking whole meals every day involves efforts made for grocery shopping, preparing for a meal, and finally cooking the meal. While this seems like a tedious and time-consuming process, it can be made easy. Nutrition education can enlighten one with easy cooking instructions with healthy meal ideas. It gives you access to several easy, nutritious recipes for meals and snacks. Easy to implement strategies to keep yourself hydrated, increase intake of fruits and vegetables, nutritious meal planning, making smart food choices, healthy eating within a budget are also covered under education seminars and workshops.
Nutrition education can help employees to learn how to choose the right foods and in the right amounts to amp up their health. It also provides simple strategies to eat healthily, make informed decisions that can be easily incorporated into their daily lives, and help to bring about a change in their pre-existing notion on health, nutrition, and well-being. This benefits the employees with good health, and with good health comes reduced risks of developing ailments and improved productivity and efficiency.
Key takeaways:
- Nutrition education involves creating awareness and instilling the right nutrition information into the employees to help them make sustainable changes to their diet and eating habits.
- It can help them not only to eat healthy at work but also make rational and informed choices while not working as well to help them stay healthy.
- Nutrition education explains basic nutrition and its impact on health, knowing what to eat and how much to eat, nutritious meal planning, making the right food choices, and easy strategies that can help to incorporate healthy habits into the diet and lifestyle of the employees.
References:
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B012227055X008385
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323770755_The_Significance_of_Nutrition_Education
- https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/nutrition-education-makes-eating-healthy-at-work-easy
