4 Ways To Promote Healthy Eating in a Virtual Workplace
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans were recently revised. We have summarized some of the new recommendations in the recent blog: Updated Dietary Guidelines: 4 Key Takeaways. Building upon these four key takeaways, we are offering ideas to help you support employee nutrition and healthy eating in the new virtual workplace.
1. Raise Awareness
You can find healthy eating resources in a lot of places. Check your health insurance carrier, EAP program, local community or government websites, or seek out wellness vendors. Create easy access to education and resources by supplying hyperlinks on your intranet or in email communications. Link to articles, recipes, videos, podcasts, and webinars. Make sure you are promoting credible resources. A few examples include:
- MyPlate
- Nutrition.gov
- American Heart Association Healthy Eating
Our Healthier Living Newsletter Subscription provides a variety of health and wellness topics and always includes a Food for Thought article and Recipe of the Month.
2. Encourage New Habits
Plan a habit tracking challenge to encourage employees to make healthier food choices. Use your wellness portal, find downloadable program toolkits (try our FREE Five A Day Challenge), or create your own. This can be as simple as tracking servings of fruits and vegetables, water intake, avoiding added sugars, or trying 10 new recipes. Check out our Wellness Portal Challenges for some great ideas!
Read about how Jill made healthy eating a family bonding activity. Wellness Portal Success: Top Chef Challenge
3. Offer Health Coaching
Health coaches can help support healthy eating. There are many options for health coaching: in-person coaching, phone coaching, smart-phone coaching apps, and text coaching. Employers are finding a variety of options that are more versatile for their population and can fit their budget. Try the free My Plate App to set and achieve healthy eating goals.
4. Promote Social Connections With Food
- Share healthy recipes. Create an internal site or folder and invite employees to share their favorite recipes.
- Feature healthy recipes in your company newsletter or on a company homepage.
- Put together a company recipe book.
- Host a virtual cooking class for employees and invite family members to attend.
Check out our Fitness Specialist Kyle’s Fish Tacos Recipe & Tutorial
