Small Steps to Nutrition

People cite a wide-ranging variety of excuses for putting healthy eating too far down on their list of priorities.

Some say they don’t have time to shop for and prepare nutritious meals on a regular basis. Others believe the cost of fresh and nutritious ingredients and the effort involved in healthy meal prep is not worth it. Still others simply claim they don’t like the taste of healthy foods.

Fortunately for corporate wellness promoters, these excuses are pretty flimsy and almost completely misguided.

Cooking and eating right takes some planning (and sometimes even a few extra dollars at the grocery store), but a commitment to good health should be incentive enough to drop the excuses.

So the next logical step for you is to work toward changing your employees’ perception of healthy eating, in order to help them lose and maintain their weight, improve their health, and feel better overall.

As you well know, employee wellness (a big part of which hinges on healthy lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise) is a vital component of your business. Healthy workers cost you less in both dollars and productivity, and they’re more likely to offer their top performance day in and day out.

Therefore the ones who engage in daily vending machine raids and lunchtime trips to the local fast-food joint are a cause for concern to their employers. Frequent poor dietary choices put them at risk for obesity and all its accompanying ills, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers.

While you’re not likely to turn a die-hard burger-and-fries fanatic into a steadfast salad eater overnight, there are things you can do to promote healthy eating, starting with small changes for those who may not be quite ready to give up their standard food choices all at once.

Consider (and share!) these small nutrition steps from Smallstep.gov: