Workplace health and safety programs can be effective at changing employee behaviors and transferring these behaviors to the home – impacting families and communities. Addressing healthy eating in the workplace can greatly impact overall employee health and should be a part of a comprehensive safety and health program.
Poor nutrition and diet is costing employers. In the United States, productivity losses from unhealthy diet-associated morbidity including coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes cost $9.3 billion (in 1995 dollars) per year.
In 1994, the cost to employers of obesity-related health problems was $13 billion per year - $8 billion in medical claims, $2.4 billion in paid sick leave, $1.8 billion in life insurance, and almost $1 billion in disability insurance. In addition, an estimated 39 million workdays are lost to obesity-related illnesses each year.
The U.S. Task Force on Community Preventive Services found that, among other things, workplace health programs are effective at making reductions in:
- Tobacco use
- Dietary fat consumption
- High blood pressure
- Cholesterol levels
- Days absent from work due to illness and disability
- Improvement in other general measures of worker productivity
But employers can make changes at work to benefit employee eating habits.