Why does my office constantly eat cake?
“Uk office culture recruits candidates for fat camp”

You’ve heard the old adage out of site out of mind well in my line of sight right now, more eye catching than a baboons bum I can see a tin of Quality Street and some left over cakes from Thursdays sales meeting. I’ve missed breakfast and the chocolates begin to chant… “go on eat me just one,  you’ll burn the calories off in Salsa tonight.” I try to it out but the voices just get louder. Before I know it I’ve got cream cake voices in my head and choc treats all wanting me to give in to there short lived pleasure promise.

Determined to lose weight I have a running battle everyday in the office to resist sweet treats and sugar highs. I sometimes think I should wear an eye mask to block out the siren calls of sweet temptation but that would be no good every Friday the sweety van as it’s termed  turns up in the office car park, announcing his arrival with short horn blasts, morse code for “drop what your doing now I’ve got something that will make you feel better”. The horn blasts they all scamper like a pack of Pavlov dogs to their preferred owner.

It’s my strong conviction that health messages have not permeated the walls of UK offices, well not the one I work in.  Yes we get bombarded with how to eat healthy at home messages but what about the workplace?

And when are colleagues going to stop bringing in cakes for their birthday, bringing in cakes because there having a bad day, bringing in cakes because they don’t want them in the home.

Not so long back office workers could light up a cigarette at there desk with few scruples, then we got educated about the dangers of passive smoking got the message and smoked outside. When is  the same evolution of thought going to migrate into offices and colleagues over cakes and chocolate? Or will it need government intervention. Perhaps the Health and Safety Exec should protect office workers health and take an equally dim view to a chocolate office vending machine vis a vis a trip hazard.

In Dec last year I decided to loose weight i did all the right things, ate less but more healthy, trained purely on cardiovascular programmes. Yes my weight loss hit a  plateau.

Now I’m a big office coffee drinker. Then one day I asked the office coffee machine man what the whitener was. He replied karimer whitener and showed me the packet which boasted a “Luxurious, rich, creamy topping experience”. Yikkes!! I drink 6 of these a day , no wonder my weight loss has hit a plateau.

Neeless to say I only drink black coffee. But shouldn’t office coffee machines declare calorie content? Our office coffee machines don’t. Maybe I should get on Dragons Den and pitch the idea.

Any way I can hear the sound of the sweety mans horn beeping and I’m starting to salivate which is making my keyboard slippy. But maybe its time office workers conditioned to sooth the rough and tumble of the daily grind with sugar fixes need government help. On the 1^st July 2007 it became illegal to smoke in enclosed workplaces in England. Perhaps now they should tackle healthy eating in the workplace and aim to ban chocolate vending machines. If they were victorious it would undoubtedly be a bitter pill to swallow but one that would be better for the office workers health.

More articles »> “Uk offices more unhealthy than a greasy Kebab?”