Do nutrition interventions in the workplace promote
better health outcomes for workers?
All around the world, food insecurity has become one of the greatest challenges facing today’s workforce. In some cases, it appears as undernutrition – that workers lack access to enough food and must try to work on an empty stomach. In others, it means malnutrition and obesity – workers are eating, they’re just eating food with low nutritional value. This has become a major problem for both the workers facing food insecurity and the businesses that employ them, a stain on the growth of a modern age, and a great inhibitor of progress.
Many have recognized that businesses have a crucial role to play in ensuring food security in the workforce and are turning to workplace nutrition interventions, that is, providing workers with nutritious meals during the workday, as a way to address the problem.
So what are the benefits? Do workplace nutrition interventions actually promote better health outcomes for workers?
Nutrition interventions reduce absenteeism
Poor nutrition has been shown to have three times the impact on health as low fitness. People who are unhealthy get sick more often, meaning they are forced to miss work, or else work in less-than-optimal conditions, potential infecting coworkers as they do.
By providing workplace nutrition interventions, businesses can reduce elevated health risks in their workforce, leading to less absenteeism – employees will miss work less often. In fact, studies have shown that every dollar spent on workplace nutrition is worth $2.73 in reduced absenteeism.
Better still, studies show workplace nutrition interventions have a positive effect on worker health behaviors, that is, when their workplace is promoting nutrition, workers begin to want to be more healthy in general.
Nutrition interventions reduce presenteeism
The cousin of absenteeism, presenteeism refers to when workers are physically at work, but not actually working. Incredibly, the cost of presenteeism is estimated to be 2-3 times higher than direct health expenses.
It’s simple: to function properly, a person’s brain needs vitamins and minerals – it needs healthy food. Providing workplace nutrition interventions allows businesses to boost the cognitive function, concentration, and creativity of its workforce, and also raise productivity.
Consider, the World Health Organization (WHO) says that ensuring optimal nourishment in the workplace can raise productivity 20%, while a different well-referenced study concluded that people with unhealthy eating habits are more likely to
demonstrate poor productivity at work.
But there is more …
As the problem of food insecurity in the workforce grows, more and more studies are emerging showing the unique benefits of workplace nutrition interventions.
One recent study showed a boost to recruitment and retention, a problem identified across the corporate world as critical in the coming years. Another particularly poignant study
even showed workplace nutrition to improve workers’ sleep quality, to reduce depression,
and to improve overall quality of life. It’s simple: workplace nutrition interventions promote better health outcomes for workers. And better workers mean better, more sustainable, businesses
