Do you think night shifts, or shift work in general, is linked to unhealthy eating habits?
Recent studies have shown that nurses are more likely to be obese than many Americans. In fact, a Harvard Nurses’ Health Study showed that about 56 percent of nurses could be classified as overweight.
Is this due to bad eating and snacking habits in the workplace such as too much caffeine, sugar and too much snacking in general? If so how do you break those habits?
What are your eating habits when you work nightshift? Studies show nurses and other people that work long hours often buy takeaways rather than make a home cooked meal.
A nurse we asked who has been doing nightshift for 20 years said she has always followed a three- meal a day schedule.
She will get home, have breakfast go to bed at 8am, sleep until 3pm. Eat lunch when she wakes up, eats dinner with her family at 6.30 or 7pm before going to work. She also snacks at night on sweets and drinks a lot of coffee and sucks sweets on her drive home to keep herself awake.
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What is your schedule when working nights?
We did a quick poll on Facebook to find out what nurses favourite foods are, and also what their favourite takeaways are.
The winner is Thai takeaways, followed closely by Indian.
Other favourites are KFC/fried chicken, Chinese, and pizza.
Nurses favourite foods? Cheese, hot chips, snickers, coke, vanilla ice cream, mash potato…hmmm maybe there is some truth in these studies?
What are your guilty favourites? Let us know!
Image credit: zimble thimble, lisabatty
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Well I can only speak for myself but when I worked for State Rail as train guard we used to work shift work known as roustabout working. What this meant was that I could sign on duty at any hour of the day and work and up to 12 hour shifts and have a minimum of 11 hours off before working your next shift. I worked under these conditions from 1984 till 1994 which was when I left State Rail. In that time I brought a lot of takeaway meals as my home domestic scene was time stressed as well.
I haven’t had that same problem when doing nursing shifts as they are more structured in comparison. However that could change if most of your shifts required you to double back on a regular basis.
Pete.
interesting topic,
seriously blown away with what some of our Nurses eat,
now it is each to their own, but if you notice there are two ends of the scale,
the person eats well and then those who don’t eat so well,
The thing is the staff cafeteria really don’t offer much in the way of a hot meal or quality that is good for you and tastes good, (from what i have seen) they do however have wraps and so forth but the cost vs quality plays a major part
If a catering team took over Hospital systems even for staff i believe staff would be more than happy to eat at these venues if quality and price were thought out,
and it is not hard to make something healthy and cost effective.
thoughts?
Regards
Nurses Only
http://www.nursesonly.com.au
I would sooner starve than eat what is available at some hospital canteens. Night shifts are the worse time to eat the wrong foods. For some reason I always get a craving for potato chips whenever I work the odd night shift. Very strange!
Hi Nurses, What sort of food is available at your local canteen? I’d be interested to know!
there is no canteen where I work and night shifts are 12 hours not that I am complaining I love the night shift and the days off after – but I have to agree economical healthy foods are just not available and night time munchies are too tempting. Smokers have had so much help getting out of that habit is it not about time that non-judgemental help was given to obese nurses
It is not difficult or time consuming to take something healthy to work for night shift. A salad and tin of tuna, soup and bread roll, or a portion of a dinnertime meal like a stir fry that can be heated up. Even a frozen meal would do. Having said that, it used to make me laugh in the ICU when I would eat my tuna and salad and was rather plump, and the others would snack all night on lollies and chips and they were appropriate weights for their height.
I am employed at a small rural hospital on the North Coast. Back in the day we had a real kitchen & real, healthy food available for patients and staff. These days it is all cook chill “airplane” food & I challenge anyone to find the nutritional value in it! I never eat hospital food and always bring food from home that is nutritious & delicious because I deserve it!! Licoricelegs
I have worked part-time nights for 9 years and find it tempting to eat chocolate and chips rather than the fruit I bring from home. The junk food machine sits in our tea room and calls out to us, and you feel you’ve earned it when the shift is busy and stressful. Then the tiredness continues for days after night duty and carbs and take-aways are so much easier than planning foods and shopping. I’ve read that night duty increases stress to our bodies and increases cortisol levels, which also encourages the body to pile on the kilos. It’s tough to fight the bad habits and keep healthy.
I found out years ago that joining in the all too common ‘fatty’ night meals and snacks don’t work for me. I take my own food to work which usually consist of raw vegetables and fruits. (I’m pretty lazy and I hate cooking – taking raw food is the easiest thing to do.)
I think the ‘night-time’ chocolate, chips and cake business is a ‘vicious circle’. People bring food to work. You eat it if you want to or not and it makes you think you have to bring a cake as well because you ate somebody else’s. There is the perfect circle and everybody ends up with a big belly they don’t want. The only winners here are the supermarkets, corner shops and vending machine suppliers.
I can’t see any healthy nutrition for our bodies in chips, cakes and chocolates – all they did for me was: make me lazy, tired and fat.
No thanks. I really enjoy nibbling my fresh cucumber, carrot, broccoli, capsicum, celery, sweet cherry tomatoes, juicy apples, watermelon or pears when everybody else is stuffing themselves with ‘Junk-Food’.
Having raw food at night is tasty, nutritious, keeps me from being tired and I can look forward to a nice breakfast before going to bed in the morning.
Why don’t we give ourselves a great gift and “Think Smart & Lose Weight”.
Sandy
http://www.thinksmartandloseweight.com