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The High Cost of Free Office Snacks
- rdl 14y agoThe problem is healthy stuff tends to not be shelf-stable or inexpensive or individually-wrapped, so it's more of a hassle to share. I think free beverages (water, hot water, coffee) are a basic requirement for an office. For snacks, you could go Google and provide something managed and stocked, or just give people refrigerator/freezer/pantry space for their own, or whatever. A nudge toward healthy might be worthwhile.
- MartinCron 14y agoRelevant anecdote: I once left a terrible job soon after realizing that the only thing that I derived any joy from was eating way too many peanut M&Ms every single day. When depressed people self-medicate with food, bad things happen.
- rizzom5000 14y agoI really don't get it. The snacks are there if you want them. Nobody is forcing you to partake. If you run 5 miles every morning, a 160 cal. bag of chips isn't 'bad' for you. If you are a full-blown couch potato who avoids any type of physical exertion like the plague, then yes, by all means, skip the bag of chips. It's just so simple. So simple ...
- dietrichepp 14y agoBasic psychology. It's easier to avoid eating candy if you don't have a desk that's literally fifteen feet from an open jar that nobody is watching. If it were that simple, we would all be much healthier than we are.
- rizzom5000 14y agoI think that basic psychology has something to say about willpower as well. I'll gamble that it's easier for someone to avoid eating candy than for a nicotine addict to avoid a cigarette that's 15 ft. away or an alcoholic to avoid a drink while in a bar -- yet people successfully quit nicotine and alcohol all the time, and without shutting themselves in a room for life. Those may be poor comparisons, but I know enough about psychology to know that people who want to change, do it on their own; jar of candy 15 ft. away be damned.
- notdrunkatall 14y agoAs someone who smoked for 14 years, quit, and now has no problem being around smokers, I concur. People simply lack willpower and discipline.
- Gatsky 14y agoGood for you, but if we adopted this as an overriding principle in public health policy, then lots of people would just keep smoking. I would also add that education and socioeconomic status are clearly related to adverse health behaviours - are you saying that poor people who don't finish high school smoke more because they lack willpower and discipline? Simplicity is a wonderful thing...
- dalke 14y agoIt's easy to put people on Mars. We simply lack a good propulsion system.
- baddox 14y agoYou seem to be unaware of how some people's willpower works. If I want to quit smoking, I don't carry around a pack and a lighter and just "use willpower" to avoid smoking. If I want to break my alcoholism, I don't continue going to all the same bars and just order water.
- SatvikBeri 14y agoWillpower is a finite resource[1]. Passing by the candy jar 15 times can easily break your resistance or leave you a little dumber and more exhausted for the rest of the day because you've spent your willpower on resisting candy instead of more useful things. As for "people who want to change...", check out the Ornish program. Patients with severe heart disease who had bypass surgery literally faced a life-or-death mandate: quit smoking, exercise, eat healthier, or die. And yet the vast majority (90%) were unable to make any of those changes. Ornish's program, which basically provided a support group for those patients, raised success rates from about 10% to 77%[2]. Again, these people knew they had to change their habits or die, and that motivation was hardly ever effective, while having some external systems to support their habit changes was massively effective. [1]: http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/msh/pdfs/MSHagger_Ego_Depletion.pdf http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/msh/pdfs/MSHagg... [2]: http://www.fastcompany.com/52717/change-or-die http://www.fastcompany.com/52717/change-or-die
- Gatsky 14y agoThere could be other things in the chips that make them unhealthy, such as food additives or advanced glycation end products (see here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20497781 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20497781). Running doesn't make you a super-detoxifying omnivore.
- noarchy 14y agoIt is quite true that no one is forcing anyone to partake in this bad food. There is a choice. But the author praises the policies of a mayor (Bloomberg) who wishes to use force to remove choice.
- SatvikBeri 14y agoHave ever procrastinated? Lost your temper? Failed to exercise? There is a major gap between what people consciously believe makes sense and what they actually do. Rather than deny that, it's often more effective to accept that this gap exists and create systems to work around it.
- baddox 14y agoIt's not wise for alcoholics to hang out in bars. It's not wise for someone struggling with marital fidelity to hang around strip clubs or brothels. It's not wise for people who know they have a tendency toward bad eating habits to surround themselves with free junk food.
- chris_wot 14y agoYogurt is full of sugar.
- pan69 14y agoSo is sugar water. You CAN buy "real" yogurt, you know?
- jsnk 14y agoYes, Yoplait has 26g of sugar. That's quite comparable to 39g of sugar in a can of coke.
- wahnfrieden 14y agoIt also has beef gelatin in it. Overall a nasty product.
- pebb 14y agoYou wan greek yogurt. So Good!
- strait 14y agoYes, Greek yogurt. Usually a lot less sugar and a lot more protein. It's can be more expensive, but the extra protein makes it more filling.
- droithomme 14y agoI agree it tastes good. But we should note that it tastes good because it has considerably more saturated fat than many other yogurts. Fage's Greek yogurt has 16 grams of saturated fat in a 7 oz package. Compare to Dannon yogurt which has 5 grams of saturated fat in an 8 ounce serving. Is Greek yogurt really better then?
- pdog 14y agoFat-free, plain Greek and regular yogurts are actually pretty good.
- elliott99 14y agoWhy is the most preeminent newspaper in the world still calling saturated fat "bad." It's almost trite at this point to explain that there are no studies to support this.
- MartinCron 14y agoSeems like a sort of cultural inertia. Drives me crazy.
- pbreit 14y agoIs that true? http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/exposed-the-reason-saturated-fats-are-so-damaging-to-health/247027/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/exposed-th...
- JohnsonB 14y ago"No studies" at all might be a stretch, but all of the studies averaged together certainly do not support the "saturated fat is unhealthy" hypothesis.
- fourstar 14y agoEverything in moderation including moderation.
- Xcelerate 14y agoI don't know. I like the taste of junk food. A little bit of moderation plus a little bit of exercise makes these things a fine office treat. Everyone is a responsible adult; let each make their own decision on what to eat. (Adding healthy stuff is fine too, but that doesn't mean you need to take away the unhealthy.)
- SatvikBeri 14y agoThe problem is that willpower is a finite resource[1]. If you have to make a mental effort to avoid the M&Ms every time you pass the kitchen, that diminishes your productivity for the rest of the day. [1]: http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/msh/pdfs/MSHagger_Ego_Depletion.pdf http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/msh/pdfs/MSHagg...
- droithomme 14y ago"As mayor of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg has prioritized health initiatives, working to enact policies that reduce the size of soft drinks and require restaurants to limit trans fats and post calorie counts." And that was a bad thing. It is not the role of government to dictate such things to the people. It disturbs me that articles are still written in which such premises are presented as settled fact rather than rightly ridiculed as components of a path towards fascism.
- dietrichepp 14y agoIt's a bad thing to require restaurants to disclose the number of calories in their menu items? Is it a bad thing to prohibit restaurants from serving heroin? I'm genuinely curious why you choose to draw the line where you do.
- baddox 14y agoYes and yes. I don't like using the threat of violence to solve social problems, kind of like what parents teach children.
- jlarocco 14y agoI draw the line at harming other people. But since it's only hurting the person eating the junk food or using the heroin then who cares? It's their own decision. Why should you get to dictate how other people live their lives? If you want to tell everybody it's a stupid idea and it's terrible, then go for it. I'll even agree with you. But at the end of the day, it's none of your business what other people decide to do.
- GuiA 14y agoThe sad facts are, that the average health of US citizens is getting worse and worse every year, and the main ones affected are those who have no say in it whatsoever: children. Ideally, the role of a government is to protect its people. The US Government also regulates a number of substances (LSD, etc.)- do you think that's also a bad thing?
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- zacharypinter 14y agoI'm a big fan of sparkling water (talking rain, perrier, etc). Glad to see it's a trend that's picking up in a lot of office refrigerators.
- jeffbarr 14y agoSame here, but beware of possible damage to your teeth. My dentist saw some pervasive problems in my mouth and asked me if I consumed a lot of mineral water (I do).
- dalke 14y ago"Mineral water" means many things. Do you use it as a synonym for carbonated water? CO2+H20 forms carbonic acid, so carbonated water has a dilute acid in it. Otherwise, I don't see how mineral water could affect your teeth. Was it especially hard water, or with high concentration of other chemicals?
- mjn 14y agoThis is a pet peeve of mine with free office snacks, yes. They turn the easiest path into one that's less healthy than I would normally choose, because the less-healthy alternative is free and someone else shops for it, so I can find myself, out of convenience, eating truly junky stuff that I would never buy myself. An unwanted "perk", which just makes my life more difficult! There does seem to be a trend towards providing some healthier options at least. Sparkling water instead of just soft drinks, perhaps some fruit. I usually bring my own stuff anyway, but it's easier if the default options are reasonable. I once DIY'd that by running a little office snack coop full of stuff I preferred (people put money in a jar, and I brought stuff in), but not all workplaces would be happy with someone doing that, and it's hard to compete with free.