Taking the Biscuit - The Dangers of Grazing in the Workplace

TITLE: Taking the Biscuit

SUB TITLE: The Dangers of Grazing at Work

SERIES: Behind the Edge

RUN TIME: 18 Minutes 

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 Ever felt that constant urge to snack at your desk? 

You're not alone. 

Many of us graze throughout the workday, but it's not just about hunger, it's a signal that something's off. 

Share this with someone who needs to hear this!

We often snack to manage our energy, boredom, or stress, but this habit can lead to serious issues, especially for those of us managing chronic conditions. 

Grazing can cause blood sugar spikes, fatigue, and mood swings. 

It's a pattern that contributes to the very challenges we face in work and health.

Instead of reaching for that biscuit or sugary drink, consider healthier alternatives like nuts, fruits, or yogurt. 

Protect your energy by taking proper breaks and noticing how different foods affect your focus and mood.  

Remember, illness isn’t a burden; it’s information about your body’s needs. 

Let’s make small, consistent changes that can lead to better health and productivity. 

What’s your go-to healthy snack? Tell us or better yet tell others.

#ChronicIllness #HealthySnacking #WorkplaceWellness #EnergyManagement #NutritionTips

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Stress and depression and insanity level accounted for twenty-two point four million working days. Loss of little health, so you can accommodate six around a hundred and fifty billion health. Now today we are looking at grazing, the constant nibbling, the biscuit tin that never empties, the crisps or chocolate that appear beside the keyboard while emails just keep coming. Now for people already living with chronic illness and for those whose bodies are sending early signals that capacity is under pressure, this is not a natural habit, it is information. Individual responses to food, energy, and chronic conditions vary wildly. Wildly even. Also wildly, depending on what you eat. Please always consult with qualified professionals for personal health decisions. Donna let's get started with the UK picture because context matters. The CIPD's Health and Wellbeing At Work 2025 report shows that the average sickness absence has climbed to 9.4 days per employee per year, the highest level in more than 15 years. Stress and depression and anxiety alone accounted for 22.1 million working days lost. The broader cost of ill health to the UK economy sits around 150 billion annually, with more than 2.8 million working age people economically inactive due to long-term conditions. At the same time, surveys of the UK office workers show around 60% eat lunch at their desk rather than taking a proper break away from the screen. Are you one of them? And many graze throughout the day. It's not an abstract picture. It sits inside the same system that is already recording absence and the rising of long-term conditions. But let's talk a little bit more about what grazing is. It's rarely about hunger, it's the physiological sense. It's often about regulation, using food to manage energy dips, stress, boredom, or the simple fact that the day has no built-in pauses. When you eat while you are continuing to type, attend calls, or stare at screens, several things happen at once. Digestion is often compromised because of poor posture, and the nervous system staying in work mode rather than shifting towards rest and digest. Blood sugar moves in repeatedly small spikes and crashes rather than steady curve that comes from eating proper meals. The attention fragments, the afternoon slump arrives earlier and feels heavier. Over weeks and months of this pattern contributes to the very things the CIPD data records. Fatigue that becomes chronic, mood instability, reduced resilience, and for some the slow salide into diagnosable conditions. Now for those of us already living with chronic illness, whether that's an autoimmune disease like ME, IBS, diabetes, long COVID, or mental health conditions, the impact is often amplified. Blood sugar violate violate can worsen brain fog and fatigue. Ultra processed snacks can irritate an already sensitive gut, and consistently low-grade inflammation from poor food choices adds to the existing load. The body is already managing a high baseline cost, whereas the grazing will raise it further. Now for people not yet chronically ill, but sensing the edge of recurring the afternoon crashes, the creeping weight, the sleep that never quite restores, grazing is one of the most modifiable factors that can accelerate or slow down that trajectory. As we talk about, illness is not a burden, it is information. The information here is that your current weight fueling is not matching the demands you are placing on your system. So let's look at the top five foods you can graze at your desk. And I bet if you look in any desk where you are at the moment, you will see if not all of them, but at least two to three. Now these are common because they are convenient, cheap, highly palatable, they also are the ones that are most likely to destabilize energy and add to the long-term list. Now I'm drawing on these based on NHS and British Heart Foundation guidance on ultra-processed foods, which now make up more than half of the average UK calorie intake. Number one, and they're not in any particular order, but let's be honest, this is always going to be number one. Packaged biscuits, digestive, shortbread, and cookies. The default office tip refined flour and sugar with minimal protein or fiber. They deliver a rapid glucose spike followed by a crash that is reliably hit to the 60 or 90 minutes later. Over time, they train the body towards insulin resistance and contribute to the low-grade inflammation linked to both metabolic and mental health decline. They are easy to eat one after another without noticing. Back in the day when I was like 17 stone, 17, 18 stone, I could eat a packet in a city. Maybe even more, easy. I don't eat any sort of cake, biscuits, and things five days a week. I might have something at a weekend, but I'm on a 30-day ban at the moment. It's horrendous because I have a sweet tooth. Anyway, number two, crisps and bagged savory snacks. Now these are high in salt, often with seed oils that promote inflammation when consumed in volume and engineered for moorishness. They provide almost no sustained energy and frequently leave people bloated or sluggish. The salt load can affect blood pressure and fluid balance, relevant for anybody already managing cardiovascular or inflammation conditions, and very much as we talked about in one of our previous episodes, chronic kidney disease. So number three, chocolate bars and confectionery. Sugar plus fat, plus in many cases caffeine, the combination creates a strong dopamine hit followed by a pronounced crash. For people with existing mood or energy regulation challenges, this pattern can mimic or worsen symptoms they are trying to manage. It also displaces more nutrient dense options. Number four, packaged pastries, sausage rolls, pies and pastries. Often incredibly cheap. Common in the meeting rooms or quick desk runs, they are very high in refined carbohydrate and saturated fats. They are energy dense and slow to digest, often producing post-meal sleepiness, that classic food coma that reduces the afternoon's output. Regular consumption is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular and metabolic issues. 5. Sugary or sweetened drinks, including many coffees, healthy smoothies, or consistent tea rounds with added sugar. The liquor calories bypass normal signals. They keep blood sugar on a roller coaster while adding to daily intake without the mechanical act of chewing that helps the brain register that is enough. For those already running close to their energy edge, the dehydration plus sugar cycle is particularly costly. Now these five aren't occasional treats in many offices, they are the background environment. Now that environment makes stable energy harder to maintain. Now the goal isn't perfection. It is better data and smaller repeatable adjustments that fit inside real lives and real workloads. For the individual like me, protect at least one proper Hindu eating window away from the screen if at all possible. Even 15-20 minutes. Prepare or choose combinations that blunt sugar spikes and provide steadier fuel. Such as apples, berries with a small handful of nuts or seeds, Greek or natural yogurt with seeds, carrot or cucumber sticks with hummus, an egg, maybe not in the office, but you know what I mean, and some fruit, or a simple protein forward snack you actually enjoy. A portion consciously, grazing often becomes overeating because the off-switch is harder to find when you are distracted. Now track one variable for a week: energy or focus, two hours after a different snack choice. You do not need an app, you don't need your notes on your phone will work perfectly fine. Patterns emerge quickly when you are paying attention. Now for people like myself with chronic illnesses, align snacks with medicational timings, known energy windows or gut tolerance. The same food that works for the colleague may not work for you. I learnt that the hard way and it's and it takes time, but it's important, and that is not a failure, it is information about your specific edge. And what can the employer potentially do about this? Now, many organizations talk about well-being while maintaining an environment that makes stable energy harder. The CIPD reports show that only 28% of organizations offer advice on healthy eating or lifestyle to all employees. Physical activity programs exist around 35%, and the proactive use of occupational health for prevention is still low at around 31%. Employers who want to reduce the £150 billion drag and the 9.4 day absence average have a leverage here, and there are practical steps they can do, such as provide or subsidize genuinely healthy options rather than relying on the biscuit tin or the vending machine defaults. Fruit, nuts, yogurt, proper meal options in the canteen, or delivering partnerships that shift to the default environment. Protect and visibly model breaks. When a senior people eat at their desks or skip lunch, the culture will follow. When leaders take proper breaks and return sharper, it gives the permission to others. Tie it in directly to productivity and absence reduction, not a wellness as an add-on. Now for employees with chronic conditions or disabilities, treat nutrition support as a reasonable adjustment where relevant. Flexible timing around energy or medication access to a fridge and simple prep facilities are adjustments to meeting culture so food is not an afterthought. Measure what matters, track not only the absence but the presentism and self-reported energy or focus. Now the organizations that see well-being investment linked to reduced absence, that's 39% in CIP data, are usually the ones that treat it as a performance system, not as a perk. Now none of this requires huge budgets. It requires on deciding that sustained human output matters more than convenience or constant availability. Now for those already at the edge or moving towards it, that mismatch is expensive in health, in output, and eventually in capacity at work. Small consistent changes compound by protecting a real lunch, choosing foods that return steadier energy and noticing what your body tells you two hours later. These are not dramatic acts of self-care, they are operational decisions about how you intend to show up for work, and that actually matters. Now, if you're an employer listening, the data is clear. The patterns people repeat at their desks are one of the places you can intervene without waiting for another crisis. So do take the time to have a look. Now, if you take one piece of information from today, test it against your own patterns. Maybe on yourself first. You know, see what it tells you. If you're the employer and you are doing this sort of stuff and feeling a bit low in the afternoon, maybe test it on yourself first and see how you feel, and then look out and see how it's impacting the rest of your team, and then maybe make the changes together. Maybe turn it into a game. Sometimes turn it into a game, you know, they have November and things like that. Turn it into something like that. We're gonna do healthy eating for a month or uh something or a couple of weeks, and see you can do this, see you can do that, and turn and turn it into something that you're all doing together for the healthiness of it. I do know that going into certain offices and seeing tray bakes and cakes and and sweets and everything else and going past it and trying desperately not to eat any and feeling really uncomfortable when I'm having to say no because Maureen's made a an absolutely beautiful carrot cake and she feels really guilty guilty that I you know, not well not guilt, she feels quite upset that like nobody's eating it. And it's probably beautiful, but you know, I've got to consider my health and everything. So, you know, d take things into consideration. Maybe if she made it gluten-free and did all this other stuff with it, it'd be a lot better. But you know what I mean? Have a have a proper think about it and everything. I really appreciate your time on today. So remember that illness is not a burden, it is information. Use it and unleash the edge in your career, in your business, and in your life.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

And I've been Elliot Evans. I'll see you on the other side.