It’s long been presumed that if we want to make changes to our health that we have to have a conscious intention to make the right choice. We have to just want it enough to make the change. While there’s definitely truth to the fact that intentions are an important predictor of health behaviour, it’s much easier to use desire and intention as a tool when we’re calm, not busy and have a lot of free mental space. But what about the hectic-ness of work?

As soon as we become stressed and overwhelmed with hundreds of work–related decisions, we can’t rely on good intentions. We have to put some food and health decisions on autopilot.

Most of the food and health decisions we make each day happen on auto–pilot. We go through the same motions to minimise effort and allow ourselves to think about other things.

We get in the car, start the engine and put on our seat belt.
When we go to the bathroom, we wipe, flush and wash our hands (hopefully).
We get home, put our bags down, walk into the kitchen, open the fridge and snack on some cheese (or is that just me?)

All of these actions have been primed by certain triggers in our environment. We’ve also repeated them so many times that we don’t have to think about it anymore. This evolutionary ability serves us really well in many cases, but automatic decisions are not always good for our long term health or goals.

We walk past the communal lolly jar on the way to our colleague’s desk and grab ‘just a few’ because they are there.
We sit down to write a difficult email and crave something sweet to the make the experience more pleasant.
We get through a tough job so we treat ourselves to a coffee and a baked good from the nearest café.

But, imagine if our work environment was filled with prompts and triggers that help us to make a healthy choice. A choice that pushes us towards our long term goals without having to think about it. How good would it be to lessen that mental load?

Priming

Studies of psychology suggest that we can use different cues and prompts in our environment that trigger us to make better choices, even if we’re not conscious of it. This is called goal priming.

If you and your workplace have a goal to support healthy food choices, then these are some simple cues that you could use to prime good choices:

Food prompts

There is very good evidence that when we make a choice about food, we are influenced by the choice that is most obvious and convenient. That’s why supermarkets stock the brand name and highest priced items at eye level. As humans we take the path of least resistance. So think of your workplace as a supermarket and stock it for the choices you want to make:

Have fruit out on the bench
Put the charity chocolates or communal lollies in a cupboard
Display pictures of fruit around the treat foods or a sign that says ‘Have me with a piece of fruit’
Store portion sized snacks in your draw
Packets of popcorn
Boxes of nuts
Individual bags of trail mix
Tubs of diced fruit in juice
Sesame snaps
High fibre muesli bars
Keep healthier snacks at eye level in the fridge
Pre-chopped fruit
Pre-chopped veg and a dip you enjoy
Tubs of yoghurt
Cracker and dip combos
Install a drinks box – a non-transparent container for any soft drinks sold by the social club.
Have a policy that leftover food from morning teas are put in the fridge or pantry, out of sight.

Images

Research has shown that seeing a healthy recipe or attractive whole food before going shopping helps us to make better food choices. We can apply the same principle when we’re picking what to eat in the office.

Put pictures around the workplace of whole foods that also look delicious. This can help to reduce the sense that healthy eating has to be boring (lettuce, tomato and cucumber salads) or not sustaining (carrot sticks).

Here are some great recipes that you can utilise, particularly for snacks:

Personalise goal primers

The research suggested that food related prompts like these are more effective for those who have a personal goal to eat more healthy or reduce their weight. But everyone’s health goals can be different. Many people want to avoid lifestyle disease or reduce their weight, while many others in the workplace may not be so interested in these goals.

Because our goals can influence the effectiveness of using prompts, it can be worthwhile getting the whole team on board with some shared goals. Getting buy-in on goals that are related to work can be a good way to help leverage the power of prompts, while avoiding the pressure to focus on health or weight.

Eating well can be related to other workplace goals like:

Avoiding the 3pm slump
Getting home in the afternoon with some fuel left in the tank
Focusing better in meetings
Having a clear mind for creativity

If you’re looking for ways to introduce your team to the ideas of nutrition for workplace performance, check out our corporate nutrition packages.

Progress not perfection

Strategies of priming our environment may not work every time. Sometimes the situational cues (stress/the desire to comfort eat) can be much stronger than these priming techniques. It’s never going to be perfect.

But, if we know anything about habit change it is that it’s not what happens on occasion that matters, it’s what we do often. If priming our workplace with healthy food in convenient places helps increase consistency with healthy food choices even a small amount of the time, that’s an incremental nudge in the right direction. It’s better to leverage every tool in our toolbox if it will help us get towards our goals over time.

If you want to help your team thrive with good nutrition and an environment that supports their health goals, then get in touch. We offer corporate nutrition services specifically tailored to your workplace.

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