key points:
- Cake and chocolate are two popular office treats, but experts are advising people to steer clear of the sweets.
- The UK's food health and safety regulator warned people that cake in the office is akin to passive smoking.
- Employers are being encouraged to supply healthy alternatives, like fruit, when marking celebrations in the office.
Cakes are, let's face it, hard to resist.
You only need to imagine a rich, moist cherry bakewell tart, a light, frothy victoria sponge, or a smooth, shiny chocolate gateau - and all thoughts of healthy eating fly away.
One of the joys of returning to the office after working from home for months - for some years - is celebrating birthdays, weddings, and engagements - with office cake.
But health authorities from the United Kingdom are warning people to put the fork down - and cut back on the cake.
The chair of Britain's Food Standards Agency, responsible for food safety and hygiene in parts of the United Kingdom, Professor Susan Jebb, said cake in the office should be viewed as passive smoking.
"We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time, and we undervalue the impact of the environment," she told the Times of London.
"If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub.”
Health coach Lou Walker authored a 2020 report that explores the behaviours and attitudes towards ‘office cake’ in the UK.
"It seems an obvious thing just to say: 'No, thank you. I won't have some'," she said.
"Unfortunately, that is not the position of many, many people who do find it hard to refuse, who do get distracted."
If staff are being urged to slice cake out of their diet, healthier alternatives should be offered, employment recruiter Azar Hussain said.
"As long as your employees feel comfortable kind of speaking up and saying, maybe instead of cake, we can have fruit today, I think that's what we should be aiming for, rather than blanket saying, 'no one should have cake'."
According to media reports, British prime minister Rishi Sunak's spokesperson said that "personal choice should be baked into our approach".
He also said that Mr Sunak is "very partial to a piece of cake".
And it's not just cake that health experts have warned people to cut back on - nibbling on small blocks of chocolate can also be more costly than one might think.
Cutting back on as little as two pieces of chocolate per week could save Australia's health system $373 million a year in knee replacements, new research has found.
According to a Monash University-led study, preventing weight gain from young adulthood to late midlife to prevent obesity could reduce the need for knee surgery by almost 30 per cent.
Research author Flavia Cicuttini stressed the importance of prevention in improving health outcomes and said weight-loss recommendations for overweight or obese people with osteoarthritis often came too late.
"Focusing on prevention, with small average long-term changes in energy balance, can make a big difference," Professor Cicuttini said.
