Dietary Help Needed as NHS Unsuccessful in Tackling Workforce Obesity

The majority of NHS trusts have not succeeded in tackling the huge problem of staff obesity, so says a recent report by the Royal College of Physicians and the Faculty of Occupational Medicine.
This researchers discovered that just 15% of NHS trusts have a plan or policy in relation to helping combat staff obesity. With regard to actively promoting healthy eating choices in its restaurants, shops and vending machines, 61% of trusts stated that they promote healthy eating in staff restaurants. However, this figure dropped to 32% for vending machines and 31% for shops.
This is a clear case for the NHS to receive some help regarding dietary guidelines as to what it provides for its staff.
Just 46% of trusts had a plan in place to promote the good mental health of staff, in spite of mental health problems being the most frequent health issue reported by staff.
With regard to stopping smoking and encouraging sporting activities the results were better, with 73% of trusts having a plan or policy in place to enable employees stopping smoking and 82% had such a plan in place to encourage staff to make use of local sports facilities.
Promoting health by tackling smoking and obesity enables people to make better dietary choices and would make real savings. 282 trusts participated in this survey based in England, covering almost 900,000 NHS staff.