Employee Wellness Ideas: Nutrition
employees generally enjoy sharing nutritional tips and trying new foods. Offer a “nutrition cook-off” and/or healthy potlucks.
• Nutrition cook-off. Teams of employees set a menu in advance and bring in prepared foods for an official competition. A nutritionist from the health department or local hospital or neighborhood serves as the judge. Dishes and foods are evaluated based on both health considerations and taste. Following the event, a cookbook of the teams’ recipes can be created and distributed to the entire employee.
• Cholesterol Control or “Down Under” Club. People with cholesterol over 200 mg. are invited to voluntarily participate. The invitation needs to be extended to all employees as the Wellness Team will not have (nor should have) access to personal health data. Offer a variety of services to support in reducing cardiac risks. Gordian Health Solutions offers cholesterol management health programs for employees qualifying by cholesterol score. If an employee gets cholesterol numbers below 200 in six months, support an incentive such as a prize to continue progress. Continue to supply data and reminders for continued cholesterol control.
• Label reading contest. Designate a particular food or food category. Workers must discover the designated products with the lowest/highest fat content in the grocery store. Give coupons or other prizes for predetermined number of winners or participants. Or, support samples of healthier meal choices based on label information. Show how these compare to less healthy choices. Display results of the contest in the employee break room or at an employee brown bag event.
Other Employee Wellness Nutrition Recommendations:
• Provide freshly brewed decaffeinated coffee and herbal tea.
• Offer a healthy food “bake-off’ once a year.
• Provide sugar and salt substitutes in the lunchroom.
• At meetings, replace sweet rolls and donuts with bran muffins, wholewheat bagels, or fresh fruit. Consider offering other decaffeinated coffee and herbal teas plus no-sugar fruit juices.
• Serve free popcorn in the break area.
• Create a cookbook featuring healthy recipes contributed by employees.
• Fruit or veggie of the week (or month). Display an “exotic” fruit or vegetable in your lunchroom and see if coworkers know what it is. Workers can put their name and the name of the item on an index card. These can be used to conduct a prize drawing at the end of the week from the cards with the correct answer. To add fun, encourage people to put down funny answers when in doubt of the real name of the item. Read some of those names during the prize drawing, and support a prize for the most creative name. Divide the fruit or vegetable at the drawing and let those interested taste it. Be sure it can be eaten raw. “Unusual” meal items like star fruit are now readily available in grocery stores work well for this exercise as many people have not tried these types of produce.
