Introduction
When we think of workplace wellness, we often think of physical activity, counting our steps, and elimination of sodas from the workplace. While those are often common elements to a wellness program, wellness encompasses so many other elements, such as mental health, financial health, and nutritional health. This month, in honor of National Nutrition Month® and the fact that Active Southern West Virginia’s $1,500 Capacity Building Grants can be utilized in part to fund nutrition initiatives, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of West Virginia’s Workplace Wellness nutrition initiatives and provide some tips and tricks about how you can influence nutritional policy, systems, and environmental changes in your worksite.
Niterra North America in Sissionville, WV provides a large cafeteria area for its employees. The cafeteria boasts food storage and prep areas allowing employees to prepare and/or reheat homemade meals versus ordering takeout food laden with preservatives and fat. Additionally, Niterra offers its employees a marketplace with vending machines, offering both standard and healthy, as well as fresh food options.
FamilyCare’s Wellness Committee discussed healthy snack vending machines. However, since FamilyCare wanted to implement this nutrition initiative across multiple locations, this option was cost prohibitive. As an alternative, FamilyCare installed snack carts in all the locations with integrative healthy options.
This Capacity Building Grant cycle (FY2024-5), Region 1 is working on implementing gardening into the workday environment. The Wellness Committee proposed incorporating indoor/outdoor hydroponic gardening in the workplace and providing gardening education. Additionally, Region 1 also proposed hosting nutrition-based Lunch N Learns to complement the gardening initiative.
Lunch N Learns - Nutrition Based
In addition to physical activity initiatives in the workplace, many Work@Health® worksites are also incorporating nutrition-based Lunch N Learn sessions, such as Region 1. Many of these educational sessions include cooking demonstrations often led by community resources, such as an agent from WVU Extension offices or a local dietician. Cabell-Huntington Health Department, for example, hosted a “Healthy Pizza” Lunch N Learn where employees made pizzas under 500 calories. Similarly, FamilyCare hosted a Zoom parfait demonstration across multiple FamilyCare sites and participants created individual parfaits.
Pick-Your-Own Farms/Farmers' Markets
Many worksites are also providing farm and farmers’ market information to employees in conjunction with nutrition education to promote local business and healthy lifestyles outside of the worksite.
I hope these examples illustrate how nutrition initiatives in the workplace can be tailored to your site needs. Nutrition is more than just cutting back or taking away sugary beverages. There is no one size fits all approach to nutrition or workplace wellness.
Conclusion
In closing, we will spend roughly 1/3 of our lives at work, don’t we deserve to take care of ourselves at our place of work too? Active Southern West Virginia wants health and wellness baked into your worksite, so that making the healthier choice is the easier choice. Interested? Let us help with that!
If you are interested in learning more about Workplace Wellness and how you can start a program at your worksite, sign up on our interest form to learn more about our upcoming FREE six week CDC Work@Health® training, which will provide you with a framework to implement an evidence-based workplace wellness program at your worksite. Hope you see you there!
Thanks for hanging out and taking the time to read this article. I hope you’ll consider joining the movement of health and wellness at your workplace.
Stay Active!
Kelly Fox
Workplace Wellness Director
Active Southern West Virginia
