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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
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NetWellness provides the highest quality health information and education services created and evaluated by faculty of our partner universities.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
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Diet and Nutrition |
The importance of regular meals04/17/2008 02:06PM |
My son`s employer does not allow breaks to their employees to provide an opportunity to eat. I have verified with the Dept of Labor that, indeed, the employer is not required by either federal or state law to provide any kind of break. My son and his coworkers often work 5-11 hour shifts. I would like to set up an appointment with my son`s manager to express my concern for my son and his coworkers` health, and would like to be armed with information on the consequences of not eating regularly from a professional point of view. Could you please provide this information? Thank you very much for your time!
After about 5 hours without food blood glucose levels begin to get low. When blood glucose gets low the brain (which uses glucose for food/fuel) does not operate as well (thinking is muddled) as when it has an adequate fuel supply. Mistakes and accidents are more apt to happen. When the body goes longer than about 5 hours without fuel (except when a person is sleeping), it switches into starvation mode to conserve energy, which means the body lowers its basal metabolic rate (the rate at which the body burns fuel to stay alive and functioning - including providing fewer calories to the brain). Even though enough calories can be ingested in one or two meals a day, the 12 or 24 hour interval between meals forces the body to maintain a lower basal metabolic rate. Studies have shown that this meal pattern also results in a poorer nutritional intake (foods chosen later in the day have a poorer nutritional profile than foods generally chosen in the earlier part of the day), thereby increasing the risk of earlier development of chronic diseases.
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Sharron Coplin, MS, RD, LD Lecturer, Food & Nutrition Department of Human Nutrition College of Education and Human Ecology The Ohio State University |
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