The High Cost of Free Office Snacks
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com
And that was a bad thing. It is not the role of government to dictate such things to the people. It disturbs me that articles are still written in which such premises are presented as settled fact rather than rightly ridiculed as components of a path towards fascism.
But since it's only hurting the person eating the junk food or using the heroin then who cares? It's their own decision. Why should you get to dictate how other people live their lives?
If you want to tell everybody it's a stupid idea and it's terrible, then go for it. I'll even agree with you. But at the end of the day, it's none of your business what other people decide to do.
Ideally, the role of a government is to protect its people. The US Government also regulates a number of substances (LSD, etc.)- do you think that's also a bad thing?
I think free beverages (water, hot water, coffee) are a basic requirement for an office. For snacks, you could go Google and provide something managed and stocked, or just give people refrigerator/freezer/pantry space for their own, or whatever. A nudge toward healthy might be worthwhile.
When depressed people self-medicate with food, bad things happen.
(Adding healthy stuff is fine too, but that doesn't mean you need to take away the unhealthy.)
[1]: http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/msh/pdfs/MSHagg...
There does seem to be a trend towards providing some healthier options at least. Sparkling water instead of just soft drinks, perhaps some fruit. I usually bring my own stuff anyway, but it's easier if the default options are reasonable. I once DIY'd that by running a little office snack coop full of stuff I preferred (people put money in a jar, and I brought stuff in), but not all workplaces would be happy with someone doing that, and it's hard to compete with free.
You CAN buy "real" yogurt, you know?
Fage's Greek yogurt has 16 grams of saturated fat in a 7 oz package.
Compare to Dannon yogurt which has 5 grams of saturated fat in an 8 ounce serving.
Is Greek yogurt really better then?
Disregarding your specific mention of saturated fat, grams of fat produce more calories than grams of sugar, so the Fage has 190 and the Dannon has 160. At that point (100+ yogurt cups to make a 1lb difference), it really comes down to the individual deciding/recognizing their body's own reaction to each macro-nutrients and fitting the right version in to their diet.
Those have little to do with plain yogurt, as it comes out from the traditional process and as we know it in Europe.
Plain yogurt has very little sugar and only naturally occurring at that:
The greek yogurt in my fridge has about 10% fat (7% saturated), and 6% carbohydrate (4.9% sugars). That sound close enough to natural proportions for me to believe it was not heavily processed.
This one had the fat removed (but that's an easy process, and doesn't alter chemically the base product or add any substance to the ingredients).
That said, the whole process to create this (even the fat-less version) is the basic, standard yogurt creation process known since the dawn on civilization, and not some mix of flavors, sweeteners and food processing that characterizes modern "yogurts".
Ok, so basically, for all intents and purposes, 'yogurt is full of sugar.'
Thus, 'yes'.
You really want to make the argument that these american programming offices have access to homemade yogurt? I really am skeptical this is an option when even fresh vegetables are not normally available.
It's like you're asking why don't they eat partridge, peacock or grouse meat in order to avoid the hormones in commercial chicken from the grocery store. Kind of an absurd argument. Why don't we restrict the discussion to what is actually going on rather than some unrealistic fantasies?
Plain unsweetened yogurt is not something exotic, it's easily available in supermarkets...right next to all the sweetened yogurts.
"No they don't, only 99% of people have two eyes."
"Yeah, so basically, people have two eyes."
"No, those people with two eyes aren't 'people.'"
It's the actual definition and quality of something that matters, not the popularity of a mis-representation of it. Statistics do not define substance.
Even if 99% of milk sold was chocolate milk, that wouldn't mean that milk contains cocoa. Milk is a specific thing, yogurt is another.
You're only confused in the case of yogurt, because whereas "chocolate milk" is sold with a different name than that of milk (that makes the different obvious), sweetened flavored yogurt is sold as "yogurt".
And the side of "yoghurt is a specific thing, and products based on yoghurt don't get to redefine what it is, even if they are sold under as members of the "yoghurt" category, the same way that chocolate milk being sold in the "milk" section does not get to redefine milk as having cocoa".
Otherwise, I don't see how mineral water could affect your teeth. Was it especially hard water, or with high concentration of other chemicals?
The snacks are there if you want them. Nobody is forcing you to partake. If you run 5 miles every morning, a 160 cal. bag of chips isn't 'bad' for you. If you are a full-blown couch potato who avoids any type of physical exertion like the plague, then yes, by all means, skip the bag of chips.
It's just so simple. So simple ...
If it were that simple, we would all be much healthier than we are.
I'll gamble that it's easier for someone to avoid eating candy than for a nicotine addict to avoid a cigarette that's 15 ft. away or an alcoholic to avoid a drink while in a bar -- yet people successfully quit nicotine and alcohol all the time, and without shutting themselves in a room for life.
Those may be poor comparisons, but I know enough about psychology to know that people who want to change, do it on their own; jar of candy 15 ft. away be damned.
People simply lack willpower and discipline.
I would also add that education and socioeconomic status are clearly related to adverse health behaviours - are you saying that poor people who don't finish high school smoke more because they lack willpower and discipline?
Simplicity is a wonderful thing...
As for "people who want to change...", check out the Ornish program. Patients with severe heart disease who had bypass surgery literally faced a life-or-death mandate: quit smoking, exercise, eat healthier, or die. And yet the vast majority (90%) were unable to make any of those changes. Ornish's program, which basically provided a support group for those patients, raised success rates from about 10% to 77%[2]. Again, these people knew they had to change their habits or die, and that motivation was hardly ever effective, while having some external systems to support their habit changes was massively effective.
[1]: http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/msh/pdfs/MSHagg...
But here's the rub: Say my employer gets rid of the candy and sponsers a support group at work for people who lack willpower. That's great! But what about the McDonald's and Burger King down the street? Should my employer lock the doors during work hours in order to control the willpower of its employees who might attempt to buy lunch at such places? What about at home? Should my employer attempt to control the shopping habits of its employees - and perhaps conduct impromptu spot checks of our homes to ensure that we aren't deviating from policy?
The point is, at the end of the day, the group can only police so much. Again, support groups are great, but the choice to make a change is with the individual. The alternative is removing free will. That's all I'm saying with my OP.
There is a major gap between what people consciously believe makes sense and what they actually do. Rather than deny that, it's often more effective to accept that this gap exists and create systems to work around it.