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Weight Loss At Work: Non-food Rewards
By Virginia Bola
The e-mail comes out at noon. "To celebrate your hard work this week, there is cake and ice cream in the big kitchen at 3 today. Be there!"
The universal reward for hard work always seems to be food: cake and ice cream, a catered lunch for in-service training sessions, pizza for the overtime crew, bagels and cream cheese to brighten up a bleak Monday morning.
Food seems to be the perennial favorite for any kind of work reward because it is universally accepted. Some of us (we hard core dieters) may pass on the sweet stuff but usually find something allowable. In a world where two thirds of us are overweight or obese, is there nothing else available as a gift that cuts across all individual interests?
Recently, we had a whole week at my company devoted to employee appreciation. The primary rewards were, of course, food but other things were added: a company baseball cap, a hiking water container, a lunch bag, and a handwritten note of thanks to every employee from their supervisor. The cap was a bust for those of us with any modicum of fashion sense; the insulated flask and bag were food related, and the handwritten notes were superfluous - good supervisors show their appreciation of hard work constantly while a handwritten note from a harsh supervisor, no matter the "thanks" stated, means diddly squat to a resentful employee.
The HAS to be something else, doesn't there? We human beings have few things totally in common and eating is the primary universal. Other common bodily activities such as urination and defecation are not easily translatable into some kind of reward system. We are all involved in physical activity, to some degree, but that is often more a chore than a delight.
When it comes to our other senses, we all differ so much that one person's pleasure is another person's pain: music, perfume, pictures, or massages are differential tastes rather than general givens.
Money is almost always acceptable but the small amounts that would be individually generated to replace a free dessert or snack would be so minimal that their reward value would be insignificant.
So what can those of us on a permanent diet, and alarmed about our coworkers' increased girth, suggest?
How about plants?
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