Applying health promotion knowledge to self-care: healthy eating and weight management for nurses.

Blake, Holly

Why you should read this article: • To recognise the importance of nurses maintaining their health and undertaking self-care • To understand how health promotion knowledge could be applied to support healthy eating among nurses • To consider the approaches that nurses and healthcare organisations could implement to promote health and well-being in the workplace. Promoting health in the workplace is a national and international public health priority, and health promotion is a central aspect of the nursing role. However, nurses’ knowledge of health promotion does not always translate to self-care and there are barriers to some aspects of self-care at work, such as healthy eating. Evidence suggests that rates of overweight and obesity in nurses are relatively high and commensurate with the general population, which has implications for their health and well-being and their delivery of health promotion to patients. This article discusses health in the workplace and some of the evidence on overweight and obesity among nurses, including how this may influence their health promotion practice. The author also considers barriers and enablers to nurses’ healthy eating at work and suggests some approaches that individual nurses and healthcare organisations can take to improve healthy eating.

UNITED Kingdom; PREVENTION of obesity; HEALTH self-care; NURSES; CORPORATE culture; OCCUPATIONAL roles; HEALTH attitudes; REGULATION of body weight; FOOD security; NURSING; SOCIAL norms; HEALTH behavior; ROLE models; JOB stress; HEALTH promotion; PUBLIC health; INDUSTRIAL hygiene; SHIFT systems; EMPLOYEES' workload

Nursing Standard, 2024, Vol 39, Issue 11, p42

0029-6570

Academic Journal

10.7748/ns.2024.e12393