5 Ways To Promote Workplace Wellness With Healthy Snacks

It is in the best interest of your company to have healthy employees. Several executives in the Western world have made this realization, which has prompted a push for universal healthcare and preventative medicine. And many companies in the United States are coming to terms with this reality.

Many progressive organizations offer benefits like mental health days and onsite gyms. Another way to promote workplace wellness, that’s arguably more accessible, is through healthy snacks.

IMAGE: UNSPLASH

1. Makes Healthy Snacks Available

Snacking at work is not going away. It can be tough to sit at a desk all day and demand mental stimulation from your brain without fuel. People naturally reach for something to get them through until lunch or dinner.

And while many offices have a vending machine or bags of chips on hand, those options can make things worse, not better. Highly processed foods and sugary treats can cause a blood sugar spike and then an energy crash.

Instead of those snacks heavy in carbs and sugar, you can have fresh food available in the break room. Keep fruit like apples, bananas, and oranges available. You can also have a healthy trail mix or protein bars ready to grab.

A green powder drink or smoothie option is another way to ensure your staff is getting the nutrients they need. One of the easiest ways to promote healthy eating is to make the food easy to grab and eat on the go.

2. Get Rid Of Bowls And Boxes Of Junk

While you’re promoting healthy eating and providing snacks, you also want to ensure you’re getting rid of the bad stuff. Sure, a box of donuts once a month probably won’t kill anyone. Indeed, it can be a nice treat, but it should be just that — a treat.

Many offices have boxes of donuts once a week, bagels another day of the week, bowls full of candy for every holiday, and beyond. It gets to the point where crappy food is the norm.

Of course, when junk is available, people are going to reach for it, and once they do, the habit becomes addictive. You can prevent this inevitability by having an office-wide rule that staff can’t bring in their kids’ leftover holiday candy.

You do your part by not providing endless supplies of donuts, bagels, and other high-carb, high-sugar, low-protein goodies. Combined with the above strategy of making healthy snacks available, you’re set for success.

3. Reward Staff For Bringing In Healthy Snacks To Share

Quite often, people like to get involved. It can feel paternalistic or authoritarian to your staff if you start handing down mandates without feedback. So, instead of simply generating more rules, you can hold regular meetings to discuss the overall health and wellness of the people in your company.

Ask employees for healthy snack ideas and their thoughts on what you’re providing.

Once you get your staff engaged, ask them to bring in snacks to share. Of course, you don’t want to burden them with the costs and labor associated with this task.

Instead, you can offer a reward; for example, you can reimburse employees for any expenses and give them a mental health day in exchange for their labor. This approach is likely to get your staff excited about participating rather than feeling forced to be involved.

4. Host A Healthy Snack Competition

To take things a step further, you could host a healthy snack competition. For your employees who enjoy bringing in snacks to share, you can have a quarterly “snack off.” If you have a kitchen in the office, you can hold a cooking competition where the top two snack providers go head to head. If you don’t have a kitchen, just have them bring in the best snack to share.

The goal here is to generate discussion and fun around eating well and getting healthy. Have employees vote on the best snack, and then give the winner a health-related prize.

You could offer a mental health day of their choosing or a gift certificate to a day spa or golf course. This way, you connect healthy eating to healthy activities and self-care. In the end, you’ll be creating a culture of wellness at work.

5. Bring In A Nutritionist

Last but not least, keep your staff educated on what healthy means. Many people may still read these suggestions and wonder why bagels aren’t considered healthy snacks. Bring in a nutritionist to hold a meeting at your office and discuss nutrition with your employees.

When people learn that carbohydrates should be eaten with protein and fiber, they’re more likely to make better choices.

Have the nutritionist come back regularly to take questions and show employees ways to make healthy snacks in real-time. You could even have her bring bagels with lox, turkey slices, or hummus, to show that one food is not inherently bad.

It’s all about the way the food is eaten and combined with other foods. Before you know it, you’ll have employees taking these healthy practices home and using them with their meals as well.

In the end, snacking is a natural part of life, especially for people who use their minds or bodies all day long. Rather than grab what’s easy, but not necessarily healthy, you can help staff make better choices.

Those options can then have a ripple effect that extends outward to include healthy meals, exercise, better sleep, and even less stress. By changing the wellness culture at work through healthy snacks, you could be changing your little part of the world.

IMAGE: UNSPLASH

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