While cakes and other sweet treats are a highlight of the day for many office workers looking for a midday pick-me-up, the head of Britain’s food watchdog says they should be kept away from the workplace to avoid tempting colleagues looking to lose weight.
Food Standards Agency chairwoman Susan Jebb compared the office party staple to breathing in second-hand smoke, The Times reported.
"We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time and we undervalue the impact of the environment," she said while speaking in a personal capacity.
"If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them.
"I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub."
The University of Oxford professor called for a change in mindset by turning the office into a space which encourages people to cut down on the sugary treats, much like how we would help people quit smoking.
While she said the two issues were not identical, she argued passive smoking caused harm to others "and exactly the same is true of food".
"With smoking, after a very long time, we have got to a place where we understand that individuals have to make some effort but that we can make their efforts more successful by having a supportive environment. But we still don’t feel like that about food."
In New Zealand, around one in three (34.3%) adults aged 15 and above – or 1.4 million people – were identified as obese, up from 31.2% in 2019/20, according to the New Zealand Health Survey 2020/21.
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