Corporate nutrition for better productivity

A healthy workplace complements by supporting the health and wellbeing of employees. Public health strategies place increasing emphasis on opportunities to promote healthy behaviours within the workplace setting. Productivity at work can get greatly affected by your physical and mental health. Many people suffer symptoms of anxiety, depression, stress, and confused thinking, which influence them in all areas of life including work.

Wellness programmes are linked to greater productivity, less absenteeism, and a reduction of long-term health care costs. Offer your employees healthy meal and snack options that help fuel their performance while also meeting their nutritional needs. Review the cafeteria menu in organisations to replace unhealthy food with healthier choices. Consider replacing tea with milk, juice, and stocking snack machines with nuts, dried fruit, and other healthy options and be sure the office cafeteria has plenty of healthy meal options.

Regular or continuous stress weakens the immune system, increases and slows the healing process. Foods that are fresh, whole, naturally colourful and rich in nutrients support your vitality, energy levels and improve physical, mental and emotional health. But far less energy has been spent on the relationship between diet and productivity or performance in the workplace. The business community needs the medical community to integrate wellness into the workplace. Business-medical partnership opens a new path to achieving a greater balance between health and workplace productivity.

Workplace health promotion programmes are an efficient approach to improving the health of a relatively large group of individuals because worksite interventions are more convenient and accessible to workers and often less expensive than off-site programmes. The World Health Organisation (WHO) established the workplace as a priority setting for health promotion, highlighting benefits to the organisation as well as to the employee.

Employees eat nearly half of their daily meals and snacks at the workplace, which means that what is consumed during working hours can have a great impact on overall diet and health.

Everyone can benefit from a nutrition tune-up. The foods we choose to eat are linked to the energy we have to be productive in our careers. Provide your employees with healthy office snacks - healthy snacks aid in weight control, improve mood, and boost energy, making it a no brainer to provide for your office. Show your employees how they can improve their health, bring in a specialist who offers biometric screenings and health assessments, and more importantly, can give people a roadmap to improved health. Organisations should provide gym facilities, healthy snacks, and biometric screening system, arrange health related seminar, free nutrition consultancy in workplaces.

Personal well-being and a stress-free work atmosphere are important aspects for achieving success and productivity at the workplace. Healthier employees mean more productive employees which mean a more profitable business!

The writer is a nutritionist.

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