In physics, you learn about how an object in motion takes the path of least resistance. As humans, we often do the same thing, especially when we are strapped for time. As I work towards my own health goals, one of the biggest hurdles that I am faced with is the fact that unhealthy “wrong” choices are so much easier than healthy “right” choices. It takes significantly less effort to skip breakfast, eat a fast food lunch, and grab take-out for dinner than it does to prepare those three meals with balanced and nutritious components every day. I am fully aware of the difference between the wrong and right choices, but the key is to find ways for the healthy choices to be the easy choices.

I am taking some small steps to begin to accomplish this. For example, immediately after going to the grocery store, I cut up my vegetables and place them in single serving size containers. I can easily grab the veggies as a snack or to cook with and there is little to no prep time. This makes eating my vegetables quick and convenient. Also, when I open the refrigerator at work or at home, there is no soda. My options include water with fresh lime (already cut up and ready, of course) or iced tea. If I really wanted a soda, I could have one. It would just involve me getting in the car and driving to the store. The easy and healthy choice is to drink the beverages I have on hand. 

These are just two simple examples of ways I have begun to make healthy choices easy and convenient for myself. I can still choose the unhealthy options, but small steps like these can go a long way towards creating a healthy path of least resistance. 

When I am developing a worksite wellness program for a client, one of the main areas of focus is transforming the culture of the office environment. I work with companies to make healthy options available to employees, but I also work to remove some of the unhealthy options or at the very least, make the unhealthy options more difficult, more expensive or inconvenient for employees.

A common example is auditing the vending machines within an office. Some companies will add healthy snacks to the machines. This is a great first step; however, by just doing that step, often no employee behavior change is realized. When faced with a snickers bar vs. a bag of mixed nuts, many will still choose the snickers bar. To combat this, some companies have increased the price of the unhealthy options while decreasing the price of the healthy ones, making it more appealing to choose healthy snacks. I worked with one company that not only raised the prices of the unhealthy items, but also made those items only available in one vending machine. That machine was located in the basement of the office building. Employees had to walk down two flights of stairs and through a dungy storage room just to get to it. The machine was also set up to only accept exact change in quarters!  The company went from filling this machine once a week to filling it less than once a month. Clearly, the path of least resistance for the employees was to choose the healthy snack items from the conveniently located machines throughout the building.

As wellness coordinators, we not only need to encourage companies to educate their employees on wellness and provide healthy options, but we also need to encourage companies to develop a culture where the healthy choices are the easiest choices. Whether it is changing the food available in the lunch room, scheduling walking meetings into the work day or making a campus totally tobacco free, the policies and procedures at a worksite need to promote healthy choices. Our goal is to put healthy options in front of people in a work setting and make it as easy as possible for them to make the right decisions and head down the path towards being well.

Wert is worksite wellness coordinator at Unison Inc. in Minnetonka, Minn. She can be reached at 952-345-2315 or ewert@unisoninc.com.