Nutrition

A little nutrition can mean a lot more return for the bottom line
By Emily Lugg The importance of nutrition is no secret, but how it effects the workplace might be something you hadn't considered. Proper nutrition provides energy and therefore increases productivity. It may be to your benefit to promote nutrition information in the office.

Nutrition encompasses many facets. It includes the food you eat, physical activity and mental wellness. It may only take a few small changes to introduce your staff to the world of nutrition. List the practices in your office that may promote poor nutrition. Or in some cases no nutrition at all. Some possible ways to turn things around may be:

1. Replace any accessible snacks or vending machines with a healthier variety

2. Establish a wellness program that encourages your staff to learn about nutrition and actively participate as a team

3. Consider offering a workout facility or including some or all of a membership fee to a local gym in your benefit program

Replace junk with nutrition in the vending machines

You may love being able to walk down the hall and grab a bag of chips out of the vending machine, or maybe a candy bar. You can still stock the vending machines with snacks, just change the choices.
Try:  The healthy vending machine is becoming popular in offices and schools across the country. Vending Connection is a vending company that specializes in stocking vending machines with a wide variety of healthy snacks. They can help you find nutrition at the touch of a button. The city of San Antonio has some great healthy vending ideas in their Fit City Initiative guide.

Be the nutrition provider

You can use nutrition as a tool for team building. Given some competition, your whole staff might give it a go.
Try:  Offer incentives for completing certain activities. Remember, you are likely to see the benefits of a healthy staff. South Dakota has a plan for worksite wellness. They outline a whole program you could enlist in the office. If you don't have the time or just aren't quite sure where to start in developing your own wellness program, you can hire companies such as Venice Nutrition to get your office into shape - literally. And if you are looking for some quick read health articles to get the office motivated, Healthline has a great Nutrition Directory page that covers a wide variety of topics.

Focus on physical well-being as a key to nutrition

There are many ways to promote physical well being in the work place. If a workout facility is not in the cards, consider activities over the lunch hour or before/after work that get your employees moving and out from behind their desks.
Try:  There are group activities you can start, or just give ideas of things that your employees can do on their own. Capital Health has a great article with ideas that you can adapt to fit the needs of your office. And just in case you aren't convinced this will benefit your workplace, here is a success story out of Texas that is likely to inspire you to get moving.

• It may be helpful before deciding the best approach to introducing nutrition into the workplace to do a little research. Most people know general nutritional guidelines, but if you are going to be in a supervisory role when it comes to your employees' well-being, you may want to beef up your nutritional knowledge. In order to be an authority on the subject you would likely need another degree, but you can easily look into getting a health magazine subscription for the office or search the web for extra facts.