Eating and stress at work: The need for public health promotion intervention and an opportunity for food product development?

• People spend an increasing amount of time in the work place.
• Stress at work can results in snacking on high energy nutritionally sparce foods.
• The work place affords an opportunity to promote dietary health and wellbeing and to develop healthy food products.

Given the large proportion of time spent at work, it is surprising that relatively little research has been devoted to understanding food selection in the work place. A growing literature suggests that stress, particularly occupation-related stress, negatively impacts upon food choice and may contribute to population ill health. The consensus is that work stress induces consumption of foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt which are likely to contribute to overweight and have long-term detriment to health. The interaction between stress and eating appears to vary by sex and type of work undertaken. This paper argues an imperative for further longitudinal and intervention research to understand interactions between food choice and stress in the work context with a view to the design of dietary health promotion and the development of nourishing food products targeted at those experiencing stress and which could be made accessible in the work place.