It’s 10.30am on a Monday and already the smell of cakes is wafting towards your desk. The colleague, who usually does a spot of baking over the weekend, has been up all night making cupcakes and an email has just flown around about their latest goodies. Later in the day another email pings into your inbox, this time it’s an update – there’s still some cakes left and also sweets have been purchased. The treat table, where confectionary congregates, is now overflowing. Someone has even been to M&S and bought a Colin the Caterpillar cake.Wow! Can I come and work in your office?
If this sounds all too familiar then you might be interested to hear that last month professor Nigel Hunt, from the Royal College of Surgeons, argued that cake culture is fuelling obesity and dental problems.Oh oh....
Warnings like this may seem alarmist or even exaggerated...No! Really?
...but cake culture at work has certainly grown in recent years. Gone are the days of the occasional birthday sponges, and our offices are starting to look more like patisseries. This comes at a time when we are facing a national obesity crisis: the UK is on track to have the highest obesity levels in Europe.You clearly never heard the phrase 'correlation is not causation', did you?
Arguably you don’t have to take the snacks, and, as an adult, you should be able to say no.*nods* Indeed so. End of problem?
What’s more, some people (myself included) simply do not have the willpower.And....that's other people's problem how, exactly...?
We are teaching ourselves bad habits at work, and it’s time to break them. We’ve rallied against turkey Twizzlers in school, the fast food industry and ready meals – so why do we ignore the rising amount of cake and sweets that are filling our workplaces?What's this 'We'..? I can't say I've ever rallied against it.
It's a free country. Want to eat Turkey Twizzlers? Go right ahead!
Instead of bringing your colleagues cakes, urge them to get up from their desk and go for a break. If your energy levels are crashing you probably need a screen-break rather than a snack. What we need is less work on our plates, not more cake.Anyone urging me up out of my desk for some State-inspired calisthenics is dicing with death...
Agreed. Plus our office isn't like that, somebody buys goodies maybe once a week, not ever day. More's the pity.
ReplyDeleteThe only cakes we have is when it's someone's birthday - bought by the birthday person for the others! It's a small office so this happens no more than monthly on average - there must be some other reason for my expanding waistline.
ReplyDeleteWhen it's Jaded's round for the Krispy Kreme doughnuts, she buys a brace for herself. It's the only way to be sure of tasting one.
ReplyDeleteThis alleged obesity epidemic is entirely caused by the ludicrous scale that is connected to the Body Mass Index. The BMI is OK as far as it goes, as long as you remember that it is a rough and ready metric that takes no account of differences in build or the difference in density between fat and muscle mass. But the scale that is used to assess your BMI reading is obviously absurd. How else could I be borderline overweight when I have a 32" waist?
ReplyDeleteStonyground
What we need is less work on our plates
ReplyDeleteYou can tell this is a public-sector parasite.
Future headline: "Non-fatties costing the economy XX amount of money in lost productivity due to cake avoidance breaks at work".
ReplyDelete"More's the pity."
ReplyDeleteOur birthday dates are nicely spaced out to almost one per month, like Ed P's. HR was on the ball... ;)
"...entirely caused by the ludicrous scale that is connected to the Body Mass Index."
Spot on!
"You can tell this is a public-sector parasite."
Indeed!
"Future headline: "Non-fatties costing the economy XX amount of money in lost productivity due to cake avoidance breaks at work"."
Oh, yes! They never admit 'our work here is done'..