"Obesogenic" Environment?

"Obesogenic" is not likely a term that you have heard before, but you may be hearing it more in the future. It refers to an environment that promotes gaining weight and one that is not conducive to losing weight. A study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association looked at what kind of environmental factors promote weight gain.

Unfortunately many office environments are "Obesogenic." Is yours?

Do any of these sound familiar?

• You spend most of your day sitting at a desk
• The stairwells at your office are not usable because they are dingy and dirty
• You have Donut Friday every week
• More often than not you have someone's leftover birthday cake lying around
• Vending machines are stocked with sugar and fat-laden foods
• The cafeteria serves nothing but grease, cream, and sugar
• Someone always seems to be bringing in homemade treats all the time
• The candy jar gets replenished when it gets just half empty

Obesity is costing employers over $13 Billion dollars a year. Employees are missing millions of work days due to illness related to obesity. Let's put our money and time into something more productive and healthy!

What can you do?

• Start a walking club at lunchtime
• Ask management to clean the stairwells and put motivational pictures and sayings in the stairwells
• Take the stairs several times per day, even if you just go up and back down a few times to get your heart pumping
• Order pedometers for everyone on your team and have a contest of who can get the most steps each day
• Petition the cafeteria to serve lower calorie options
• Keep healthy foods in your desk drawer for quick snacks
• Encourage your coworkers to leave their baked goods at home
• Get rid of the candy jar!

Photo of candy jar provided by D'Arcy Norman

Labels: obesity, Tara Gidus, weight gain, workplace

Permalink | Email Post