Hospitals as food arenas: Can the hospital make a difference for staff?

Purpose: To analyse the interaction between hospital employees’ working conditions, and their health and dietary habits, including the role of canteen take-away schemes. Design/Methodology/approach: An international literature review combined with case studies based on stakeholder research interviews of the social shaping of canteen take-away schemes at two Danish hospitals.

Findings: Hospital employees seem to be under pressure because of their working conditions, including insufficient possibilities for taking regular breaks, which reduce the possibilities for eating regular meals. Nurses seem in some cases to internalize the tensions between the work load and the possibilities to have regular breaks and regular meals during the work day, which causes risk of ‘overeating’ or ‘undereating’.

Canteen take away-schemes might improve the accessibility of regular meals for employees at evening and night shifts if the ordering and delivering structures are organized with respect to this and might reduce the workload outside the workday for planning, shopping for and cooking dinner meals at home for employees on day shift.

Initiatives for reducing the work load during the work day were also identified. Research limitations: The assessment of the dietary changes based on the canteen take-away food was only based on indirect assessments based on interviews with users and non-users and furthermore based on a questionnaire at one of the hospitals.

Value/originality: Canteen take-away schemes are a rather new initiative at worksites. The paper applies a social shaping approach to the case studies, which ensures that the concept is not given a positive impact beforehand.