Can your workplace encourage good nutrition?

We’ve heard many times how important it is to eat healthy and we might be trying to set aside time to prepare healthy meals. But, does our busy work life let us take care of our nutrition?

There are some days when we have so much work that we hardly have time to eat. We tend to choose snacks and lunch options that are quick and easy to prepare. Quick food is often not the healthiest option and if we mix it with stress we’ll have the recipe for disease.

Having a workplace nutrition program can help motivate all members of an organization to eat healthy during their workday and even take some time to learn how to improve their nutrition. Research has shown that good nutrition can help lower the risk of many chronic diseases including heart disease, stroke, some cancers, diabetes, and osteoporosis¹.

These are some activities you could start at your workplace to promote good nutrition:

• Start a healthy eating campaign to inform employees
• Offer nutrition counseling
• Promote a workplace healthy food policy
• Have healthy food available for your employees
• Offer a healthy food cooking class
• Motivate your managers and directors to lead by example

Where to start?

Healthy eating initiatives should be part of a complete workplace health program. You’ll need to find a nutrition champion or coordinator among your employees who would be in charge of good nutrition activities. All employees should be invited to participate but their involvement should remain voluntary. You might find it useful to circulate a quick survey to help you learn about what your employees need and what activities they would be interested in.

Make sure your plan for a healthy eating initiative has a clear target determined and has activities happening periodically. Also make the effort to market it correctly: make it fun, spread the word with everybody and walk the talk!

Here you will find some ideas on how to start a healthy eating campaign at your workplace:

Eat Smart Move More Campaign

¹http://www.cdc.gov/workplacehealthpromotion/implementation/topics/nutrition.html#