Long working hours and inadequate canteens can lead to weight-related ill health and poor productivity, says Ken Mann

Report by researchers at Edinburgh Napier University into instances of excess weight and obesity among Scottish nurses provides a broader menu of food for thought than perhaps it intends.

The item was well covered in the Scottish media and in some UK outlets last week. Hardly surprising, given that nearly seven in 10 nurses – a "worryingly high" figure – were found to be overweight or obese, according to Napier’s academics, led by Dr Richard Kyle, a reader at its School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Care.

The overarching point of the exercise was not simply to highlight a regional example of the increasing prevalence of overweight issues but also to pose the question of whether nurses’ own more obvious and less desirable "health behaviours" adversely influence the public’s confidence in health promotion. Clearly, nurses represent a frontline force for advice.

However, other interesting conclusions, while not specifically within the scope and rigour of the research, are implied by association.

Looking at a wider picture of health, some employers should take the opportunity offered by this investigation to chew the fat over the relationship between long working shifts coupled to office and factory sites that are remote from food shopping streets, and the potential impact on employees, linked, if you’ll excuse a lighter note on a genuinely hefty topic, with the hidden HR costs to their bottom line.

To put some more contextual flesh on the bones, the University quotes the number participating in its survey at 13,483 people aged between 17 and 65. That sounds as large as the subject, until you explore the sampling methodology.

Data was used from 411 nurses, alongside those described as "other" healthcare professionals (320) and "unqualified" healthcare staffs (685). The rest were "individuals employed in non-health-related occupations" (12,067). For the latter, a "nationally representative" sample of five aggregated annual rounds of the Scottish Government’s Scottish Health Survey, 2008 to 2012, provided a platform. It therefore constitutes a cross-section comparison between nurses and others, using a Body Mass Index (BMI) of greater than or equal to 25.0 as a measure.

While finding 69.1 per cent of nurses were overweight or obese compared to 51.3 per cent of other healthcare professionals, it also found that around 68.5 per cent of unqualified care staff were considered to be in the same category. So were 68.9 per cent of the sample chosen those in non-health related occupations.

We are, in common with many peer nations, pushing the boundaries of healthy BMI but the root represents another layer of trouble for those who habitually have to do long hours, perhaps night shifts or choose to cram hours as part of a flexi scheme. And it’s close to a pandemic across the workforce pool.

In the case of nurses, University researchers quote union leaders making a plea in the wake of the report for healthier options being made available in canteens.

That argument might have some credibility for open-all-hours establishments on bigger NHS sites, but what about canteens that close after, say, 7pm through reason of inadequate volume of customers in relation to viability?

Remember that many private sector canteens are run by outsourcers chasing thin profit margins.

Viability can frequently, though perhaps not always, have an impact on the buying customer’s inclination to purchase the healthy option. Alongside pie, beans and chips cooked in the wrong oil, it can look poor value or put more fundamentally, a couple of quid extra. Times five days or more, that’s not cheap.

I’m no nutritionist – but personal experience suggests that it is not, as all the trendy chef-y TV programmes appear to purport – just as cheap to eat healthily. I mean properly healthily; have you seen the levels of salt, sugar and saturates in some "healthy, quick and easy" processed foods?

And it can take time and effort – and preferably the skill of portion control – to prepare a nourishing meal. Few want the hassle if they have long, tiring hours to deal with.

Then, to top it all, you can have places like call centres and manufacturing plants located on the fringes of towns and cities, where few outside alternatives exist other than nipping to a proud purveyor of burgers and buns base in a clapped-out Tranny van.

Time for exercise is typically limited for those on elongated shifts. I gather that a once a day 20 minute walk at brisk pace is a good idea. But if, as is not unusual, during breaks there are Post Offices to visit, cash machines to interrogate, bills to pay and a call to be made to the garage to say you’ll be late picking up the car from service, then what time is there for healthy eating?

The report certainly reveals a concerning issue among nurses – but also an as yet unexploded health bomb for many other workers that will cost employers dearly through absences caused by diet and weight-related ill health.

It might cost money up front, but more large employers need to examine the cost benefit of subsidising healthy canteen operations over more sensible opening hours.

For Scottish employers, that represents an uncomfortable long-term view of cost over value. Retaining healthy workers at maximum productivity is the answer.

Otherwise a new set of unsavoury key performance indicators will more be the future influencers of Britain’s productivity dilemma.