How many times in the past week have you had your lunch in peace – without checking notifications or attempting to respond to emails? How often have you had your lunch away from your desk? If you’re not sure, you should listen to what some scientists have to say. They call us a generation of mindless eaters as most of our calorie consumption occurs as a “secondary activity”.
We’ve seen numerous offices where people eat lunch at their desks in conjunction with another task. Eating while distracted is a common occurrence – experts say we now do 50 per cent of our eating while concentrating on something else and all that comes with a big downside. Eating while distracted is well known to cause overindulgence and dampen our perception of taste, causing us to eat more. So if you think of yourself as an incredibly productive office rockstar because you multitask, the real truth is that you’re simply robing yourself of the eating experience, which can not only leave you feeling both overly full and unsatisfied, but also affect your performance.
Today we’re calling for revolution in lunch eating. We need to create zones for people to enjoy their lunch: nothing too excessive, a few chairs and a table will make a massive difference straight away. Make it your mission to encourage eating away from their desks.
If you get stuck and need a little advice on how to maximize the space you’re working with, give PENSON team a call as no job is too big or too small for us when it comes down to improving offices. Your wellbeing matters – that’s something our team feels very strongly about!
