Down To Earth Nutrition
Employee health improvement solutions from Down To Earth Nutrition
With Britons working longer and harder than ever before, health and wellbeing are increasingly becoming workplace issues. Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive* show that over 30 million working days are lost each year from people taking time off because of work related illness or injury. This is a big cost to businesses.
*Health and Safety Executive Statistics – www.hse.gov.uk – 8.10.07 Reproduced under the terms of the OPSI Click-use licence.
The Department of Health believes two million people have suffered an illness they perceive has been caused by, or made worse by, their work. Therefore rates of sickness absence can increase, causing a reduction in productivity, leading to a dent in profits.
Employee absence costs to business is significant. Ill health is estimated to cost the UK economy 28 million working days per years*. Productivity lost due to stress and other mental health concerns costs £25 billion per year. (*HSE 2006)
Down To Earth Nutrition can help your organisation address these issues by delivering tailored nutritional solutions.
Services include:
A. Individual Employee Nutritional Consultations
These provide overall health improvement advice or address specific health issues. A Nutritional Therapist is provided and able to see four employees per day (each employee receives a bespoke written report of recommendations).
Duration of consultation is one hour (completion of case history by employee prior to appointment and is held in room provided by employer). Fees available on request. One option available is for employers to subsidise the cost of the consultation; the employee contributes the remainder.
B. Workshops
The aim of all workshops is to educate employees in a positive, interactive way and give each employee the tools to take control of and improve their health.
Duration of each workshop is one hour, encompassing a 15 minute question and answer session at the end. Maximum of 10 attendees per session.
1. Improve energy and productivity levels
A number of employee surveys have shown that over 70% of employees support employer involvement in workplace health promotion programs and 85% believe that workplace programs can increase health and lower health costs. £17bn p.a. is wiped off UK productivity because of poor working day eating habits, a study carried out by corporate caterers Baxterstorey revealed (www.baxterstorey.com Nov 07)
What benefits can this workshop provide?
Diet and lifestyle have a major impact on energy and productivity levels; this workshop explains how to improve energy and productivity levels by making small changes to diet and lifestyle.
This workshop covers:
- What the body needs for efficient, sustainable energy production and how to ensure this
- Identification of potential factors that reduce/block energy levels and how to address these
- Focuses on "brain" foods to ensure efficient brain functioning, to help improve concentration and productivity levels
- Easy to prepare meal and snack ideas, to improve and maintain energy and productivity levels
- Handout summarising advice for improved productivity and energy levels
2. Reducing stress with nutrition
Stress is cited as one of the key factors for sickness in staff.
A recent survey (skillsoft Dec 2008) found 92.4% of people find life at work stressful all, or at least some of the time; 29.4% are comfort eating or dieting to extremes and 22.2% of respondents did nothing to alleviate the stress that they feel at work.
Work-related stress accounts for over a third of all new incidences of ill health with each case leading to an average of 30.9 working days lost*
* www.hse.gov.uk – All statistics reproduced under the terms of the OPSI Click-use licence
What benefits can this workshop provide?
Regular stress can increase the risk of a number of chronic conditions, such as obesity, digestive issues, food intolerances and premature ageing.
This workshop can reduce this risk by:
- Giving your employees the information to address stress and improve their health
- You as the employer contribute to reducing costly levels of employee sickness by providing them with this workshop
- Demonstrates that you the employer care about the health and well-being of your employees
- Demonstrates both understanding and a proactive approach to your duty of care as regards employee health and wellbeing
This workshop covers:
- Identifying "internal" stressors and addressing these to reduce stress levels
- Foods that can help protect against the damaging effects of stress
- Lifestyle recommendations to reduce "external" stressors
- Easy to prepare recipes and snacks containing de-stressing, "protective" foods
- Handout summarising stress reduction advice
3. Weight management
A recent report by Foresight*, written by 250 leading scientists, warns Britain's obesity crisis is so severe that it would take at least 30 years to reverse. If current trends continue, by 2050 fifty percent of adults and twenty five percent of children in the UK will be clinically obese. The report expects Type 2 diabetes to rise by seventy percent.
*The 2007 Foresight Report 'Tackling Obesities: Future Choices' http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/aio/8268011
What benefits can this workshop provide?
Excess weight increases the risk of a number of chronic conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. This workshop provides your employees with the tools to balance and maintain their weight.
This workshop covers:
- Nutritional advice, explaining why diets don't keep weight off.
- Explanation of blood sugar balance; the right foods to eat that provide sustainable energy, that don't contribute to excessive weight gain.
- Lifestyle advice: identifying and addressing factors in lifestyle that can contribute to weight gain.
- Employees leave armed with easy to prepare recipes and snack ideas.
- Handout summarising weight management advice
- Other topics covered on request.
Fees available on request.
About the author
Shirley Ward, Nutritional Therapist C.H.Ed (Dip Nut Th) MBANT, runs her busy practice, Down To Earth Nutrition, in Brighton. Shirley provides private consultations as well as corporate solutions to reduce staff sickness and improve productivity. She regularly presents workshops on a range of nutritional subjects.
Shirley can be contacted at:
info@downtoearthnutrition.co.uk or Tel: 07590 527665
www.downtoearthnutrition.co.uk
Please quote YourDoc when you contact her.
Nutritional Therapy looks to improve overall health. As a Nutritional Therapist I give my clients the tools to take control of and improve their health. Eating the right foods for you and reducing the impact of detrimental factors in lifestyle and environment can significantly improve your health.
If you're not sure why certain health issues have occurred or why good health evades you, I can help you identify causative factors. Addressing these factors through realistic modifications to diet and lifestyle gives you back control of your health. Having studied nutrition for five years, I formed Down To Earth Nutrition with the aim of de-mystifying the often confusing world of nutrition. Services delivered include:
- Individual Nutritional Consultations
- Employee Consultations
- Corporate Workshops, covering a range of topics to improve employee health and assist in reducing sickness levels
I write regular articles for Your Doc Medical and am proud to have the opportunity to partner with this professional organisation.
For more information visit www.downtoearthnutrition.co.uk
