Employee Wellness Services

The Importance Of Employee Wellness

If you manage a company and hire employees, a key priority for you will be the well-being and performance of your staff. If your staff have good physical and mental health, they’re more likely to be productive.  Ensuring that good workplace wellbeing strategies are in place can have a positive impact on the workplace, benefitting your employees and the company overall. Examples of how a company can benefit from a healthier workforce include reduced absenteeism, better employee retention and morale, better overall  productivity, a reduction in health care costs, and better teamwork, including bringing employees together as they work towards healthy living goals and support each other in the process.

Having worked with many clients and run workshops over the years, one thing that’s very apparent is the lack of nutrition education and knowledge. It’s not something we as adults learned at school, and I have found that whether it’s nutrition or food psychology, most people have little knowledge, unless they have a particular personal interest themselves, having either taught themselves or pursued further education in such fields. And yet nutrition and food psychology are both such vitally important areas as they can have a huge impact on mental and physical health and well-being. With my background in Nutritional Therapy and Health Psychology, I teach people about both of these key areas.

Obesity In The Workplace: Main Factors Driving Obesity

The UK has been in the midst of an obesity crisis for quite some time now, with approximately 64% of adults in England estimated to be overweight or obese (2022 to 2023, WWW.GOV.UK). Some of the key factors driving obesity are diets high in calorie-dense foods, diets dominated by ultra processed foods, food marketing, availability of fast food outlets, lack of physical activity and stress. Many people would describe themselves as having a poor relationship with food, where they might have a tendency to turn to food to cope (emotional eating), or they might just eat mindlessly, unaware of what and how much they eat.

Consequences Of Obesity And/Or A Poor Diet

Whether a person is overweight, obese, or simply eating poorly, they can experience a whole host of symptoms and issues such as fatigue, low mood, anxiety, poor concentration or ‘brain fog’, lack of drive or apathy, headaches, hormonal issues, regular colds, lack of confidence or low self-worth, loneliness or feelings of being ignored or marginalised, joint and back pain, and associated diseases such as diabetes, heart problems and cancer- all of which may lead to an increase in sick days or time off for medical appointments.

There will be those staff who have a good attendance record and generally good health, but perhaps they struggle to eat a balanced diet, or they feel a bit bored with their current eating habits and are looking for ideas to make their meals more interesting or satisfying. They may or may not have a history of dieting, perhaps wanting to lose a small or large amount of weight but don’t want to go on another diet; or there might be healthy weight individuals who are struggling with disordered eating. My food coaching sessions can therefore be a really useful  part of preventative health- taking steps to avoid getting sick in the first place, whilst also helping people to tackle certain issues they might currently have with their health, their eating habits or their overall relationship with food.

Key things that can boost and maintain an employee’s health and well-being:-

• A healthy, balanced diet, and good hydration
• Adequate exercise, as well as sufficient desk breaks
• Support in managing workload and overall stress management, including sleep management techniques
• Flexible working hours
• Adequate sunlight
• A sense of belonging and value within a team, as well as social contact time
• Regular  feedback, encouragement and validation.

Workshops And Webinars: A Wide Range Of Topics To Suit Your Employees’ Needs

I offer a wide range of workshop and webinar topics for weight management, nutrition education, disordered eating and mindful eating.  Topic titles include ‘Food and Mood’, ‘How To Tackle Emotional Eating’, ‘How To Stop Binge Eating’, ‘Healthy Eating For Hectic Lives’ and ‘Simple Steps To More Mindful Eating’. I can also run other specific topics such as ‘Smart Meal & Snack Ideas’.

If a person doesn’t eat in a nutritious way or they have chaotic eating habits (such as skipping meals or grazing), this can negatively impact their health- and many people underestimate just to what extent a poor diet can affect both our physical and mental health. When a person’s blood sugar levels drop, not only will they feel hungry but they may also feel irritable, and find it hard to focus and concentrate. For good cognitive function, a person needs to eat not only nutritious foods but they also need to eat regularly. If a person is on a diet, they might not eat adequately, either through very low calorie consumption or by cutting out certain food groups, and this will affect their mental and physical performance- and they are also likely to find it hard to stick to the diet, keeping them trapped in a cycle of yo-yo dieting.

The office is often a place of snack foods, so giving employees skills and a ‘toolbox’ to manage the food environment, as well as helping the team as a whole to make more effort with what kinds of foods are present in the office is key. I promote flexible, ‘middle-way’ eating, which means that no foods need to be forbidden- it’s not about perfect eating and only having bowls of fruit in the office, but having a range of enjoyable foods available that suit all, and which help to sustain people throughout the day, whilst helping individuals to tune into their body more and eat in accordance with their own needs. Many people have an all-or-nothing mindset, where they swing between extremes of behaviour, such as either eating a whole packet of biscuits or eating no biscuits at all, when in fact they would love to be able to savour and enjoy just a couple of biscuits, without it escalating into a binge. I teach mindful eating practises that help people to achieve this more balanced approach to food. I also encourage people to introduce more foods to their current eating, so that they embrace an ‘adding in’ mindset, rather than a ‘taking away’ mindset.

One-To-One Sessions: How Personalised Food Coaching And Mindful Eating Can Help Your Employees

If an individual is experiencing poor energy or any kind of physical or mental health issue or condition, I can offer more personalised one-to-one support to help your employees to improve their eating habits and lifestyle, and can also work with individuals who might be currently off sick. Some people prefer group sessions, but many prefer to have their own private space to discuss their relationship with food on a one-to-one basis.

When addressing overeating, exploring emotional eating, mindless eating behaviours and current food choices can be really useful, as well as looking at how eating habits may have arisen from learned behaviours, as well as food, body image and diet-related beliefs and attitudes picked up in childhood. To understand a person’s relationship with food, it’s important to recognise that food and eating can symbolise different things to different people. For example, eating can be a way to relax or have a break, a means of calming down, distracting or numbing oneself when things feel difficult or overwhelming; it can be a way to reward oneself, let go or decompress, a way to put things off (procrastinate), and it can even be a means of rebelling or rule-breaking. Food might be used as a way to self-soothe or even self-punish. Eating is then usually followed by feelings of guilt and shame.

Eating habits, body image, self-worth, lifestyle, personality, mental health and past experiences are just some of the topics that are explored in my one-to-one sessions and workshops, as it’s important to consider the ‘whole picture’ when it comes to understanding a person’s relationship with food and eating behaviour.

Sessions Format (Online and In Person)

• One-To-One sessions
• Group talks and workshops/webinars
• Support groups

Frequency And Duration Of Classes

• Half day or full day workshops/webinars
• Hourly (eg lunchtime or after work) sessions
• Weekly or fortnightly sessions.

“Emma’s approach to mindful eating radically changed my perspective of what healthy eating actually is. More importantly improved my mental health! She doesn’t give you a diet plan to follow and really gets to the bottom of why you have a problem with food! Would highly recommend for anyone who has been on the diet treadmill for years.”

You can read more reviews, including one-to-one sessions and reviews from groups, talks and workshops.

Read more about my food coaching sessions.

Read more about my workshops.

Cost of sessions will depend on your individual company requirements. To discuss prices, or to find out more about my employee wellness services, please email me or give me a call (Emma Randall) on 07961 423120.