If you ask a child what her favorite subject in school is, you can expect an answer that hasn’t changed much since the dawn of time: recess.
Similarly, most of us adults would say our favorite part of the nine-to-five day is lunch, which begs the question: why are so many of us not making time for it? No self-respecting grade-schooler would miss a chance to soak up the sunshine with a PB&J, so why would grown-ups?
More than 45 percent of American workers say they bring lunch to eat at their desk once a week. Twenty percent do it every day, and about one-third skip a midday meal altogether, according to a recent study by research firm Datamonitor. And Americans aren’t the only ones glued to their desks: a June 2010 study by BBC News stated that one in four people in the UK work all day without taking a break; in Australia, 43 percent of workers said they didn’t have time to bring in lunch or go out for it.
If workers aren’t nixing lunch completely, they’re pulling the popular eat-and-work ethic of grabbing takeout, ordering in, or, perhaps worst of all, depending on the office vending machine for sustenance. Here’s a look at a few reasons why we might be missing the second-most important meal of the day and how we can help ourselves.
Problem #1. Time: It’s Not on Our Side
With most of today’s businesses built around the Internet, deadlines aren’t limited to five o’clock, as they were in the good old days. Now they continue throughout the day and night, particularly in international companies, and workers are competing to keep up with them, skipping breaks to meet the demands.
Solution: Divide and Conquer
If you’re so crunched for time that an hour away from your desk is cringe-inducing, talk to your boss about splitting your lunch hour up throughout the day. Rather than returning to forty-two voicemails after spending sixty minutes away, try taking fifteen minutes in the morning for a quick walk around the block, a half hour to sit outside midday and eat, and another fifteen minutes around 3:30 or 4 p.m. to stretch or grab another puff of fresh air. This will keep your body moving without pushing the message limit on your voicemail inbox.
