Reducing excessive consumption of food and soft drinks is core to tackling the high rates of overweight and obesity in the UK and elsewhere. It is estimated that about one third of our daily energy intake is consumed while at work, with most of the food consumed not brought from home.  There is currently limited evidence of the impact of interventions within workplaces to improve employees’ diets, with most interventions to date based on informing and educating workers about their diets, commonly regarded as insufficient to tackle obesity.

In this paper we describe a protocol for a pilot stepped wedge randomised controlled trial to estimate the potential impact of three sets of physical micro-environment interventions to reduce energy purchased in workplace cafeterias: 1) size of portions, packages and tableware; 2) availability of healthier vs. less healthy options and 3) energy labelling.

The results of this pilot study will inform the design and procedures for a larger trial.

Physical micro-environment interventions for healthier eating in the workplace: protocol for a stepped wedge randomised controlled pilot trial. Vasiljevic M, Cartwright E, Pechey R, Hollands GJ, Couturier D-L, Jebb SA, Marteau TM. Access full text