• Health minister Anna Soubry criticised Britain's 'weird' relationship with food
  • The MP urged people to spend more time preparing and savouring meals
  • Comments came after Ms Soubry sparked controversy by suggesting poor people were more likely to be obese
  • 60 per cent of workers eat at their desk every day, because they would 'feel guilty' leaving the office for an hour

By Kerry Mcdermott

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'Weird nation': Britons are 'weird' when it comes to food, according to health minister Anna Soubry

'Weird nation': Britons are 'weird' when it comes to food, according to health minister Anna Soubry

A minister has described office workers' lunchtime habit of eating a sandwich at their desk as 'disgusting'.

Health minister Anna Soubry said busy workers should not eat over their computer keyboards, but should take a proper lunch break to give them time to 'enjoy' their food.

But research has shown that 60 per cent of workers eat their lunch at their desk every day, with many admitting they would feel 'guilty' if they left the office for an hour.

Ms Soubry's comments came after she sparked controversy by suggesting that poor people were more likely to be obese.

The minister said it was ironic that Britons enjoy watching celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver in action on the television, yet 'we don't as a nation, any more, cook'.

Highlighting Britain's 'weird' relationship with food, the MP urged people to take more time to prepare and savour their meals.

'We are a weird nation,' Ms Soubry said.

'We consume television programmes about cooking, all the books, but we don't as a nation, any more, cook.'

Ms Soubry - who revealed she has forbidden the use of the word 'fat' in her home to try and prevent her daughters from becoming obsessed with their weight - said she encouraged staff at her constituency office in Nottingham to take time out for a meal at lunchtime.

'It's disgusting eating over a keyboard,' she said, adding that a proper lunch break provided workers with time to 'chill out, get your head back together, and enjoy what you're eating'.

However, the Broxtowe MP does admit to eating lunch in her office herself, a report in the Daily Telegraph said.

Research has shown that some stressed-out employees work the equivalent of 16 extra days per year for free by refusing to take a lunch break and eating at their desk instead.

'It's disgusting eating over a keyboard'

 Health minister Anna Soubry

A poll of 1,000 people revealed 60 per cent eat their lunch at their desk every day, while two thirds take a break of 30 minutes or less despite being entitled to a full hour.

The sacrificed break time adds up to an extra 128 hours of work per year - equivalent to 16 eight hour days.

Ms Soubry said employees were working for free instead of taking a proper lunch was 'mad' and 'wrong'.

'Disgusting': The minister said office workers should take proper lunch breaks rather than eating sandwiches over their computer keyboards

'Disgusting': Anna Soubry said office workers should take proper lunch breaks rather than eating sandwiches over their computer keyboards

Award-winning dietician Azmina Govindji said she 'absolutely agreed' that eating lunch at your desk was unhealthy, but added: 'I don't think in this day and age people expect to go out for an hour and have a jolly old time like they do in France.

'When you eat at your desk you aren't really focused on the quality or quantity of your food, and can end up eating more,' said the dietician.

'It's very sensible to take a proper lunch break, but on the flip side it isn't always practical,' said Ms Govindji, who is a spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association.

CRUMBS ON THE DESK ARE 'PERFECT ENVIRONMENT' FOR BACTERIA

The crumbs that accumulate on your desk and in your keyboard provide a perfect environment for bacteria and fungi to thrive, says Dr Ron Cutler, a micro- biologist at Queen Mary University of London.

The temperature in offices is typically around 20C, the point at which staphylococcus can breed, causing diarrhoea and vomiting — which is why leaving your sandwich on your desk all morning is also a risk.

Your risk of catching your colleagues' bugs are also higher in an open-plan office, says  Dr Cutler.

'If you are coughing and spluttering, do everyone a favour and go home.

'The particle matter in a sneeze can travel more than three metres in any direction.'

And the more people who share office equipment or desks, the greater the risk of catching a bug.

'Faecal contamination has been found in the office environment and on phones, so the more people use certain equipment, the more germs will be on it,' says Dr Cutler.

She recommended that people with hectic lifestyles and stressful jobs make an effort to ensure that, if they are eating lunch at their desk, the meal is as healthy as possible.

'You could make your lunch the night before, swapping white bread for wholemeal and mayonnaise for honey and mustard dressing,' said Ms Govindji, who added that desk-bound employees should make an effort to pop outside at some point during their working day, even if only for a few minutes.

Ms Soubry, 56, suggested earlier this week that a person's weight could be an indication of their social background.

The outspoken minister said people from poor families were more likely to be obese, and that it was 'almost possible' to guess a person's background by their size.

Speaking at an event in London hosted by the Food and Drink Federation, Ms Soubry said parents had the 'primary responsibility' of ensuring their children ate properly.

NO TIME TO 'SWAN OUT FOR A SANDWICH'

PR assistant Tammy Phillips, 24, from Birmingham, hasn't taken a lunch break in two years.

'The way I view it is that I can get on with work when its quieter at lunch time and it never hurts your career for the bosses to see you at your desk when your colleagues swan out for a sandwich,' she said.

'The competition for jobs now is so fierce that I've known friends who have quit smoking because they don't want to be seen to be popping out for fag breaks during the day.

'I want to get ahead and further my career and I'll take my lunch break when I'm the boss.'

'It is a heartbreaking fact that people who are some of the most deprived in our society are living on an inadequate diet,' she said.

'But this time it's an abundance of bad food. When I was at school you could tell the demography of children by how thin they were. You could see by looking at their eyes.

'When I go to my constituency, in fact when I walk around, you can almost now tell somebody's background by their weight.

'Obviously, not everybody who is overweight comes from deprived backgrounds but that's where the propensity lies,' she added.

The minister said she regularly saw children in her constituency buying fatty snacks such as crisps for their breakfast.

'Where I am in Nottingham, there is a Sainsbury's and you see children going in there buying take away food, a sandwich, but more likely a packet of crisps, a fizzy drink, and that's their breakfast,' she said.

The health minister said she also regularly spotted parents buying their children cheap, fat-laden buns to eat for breakfast on her way to work at Westminster.

The 'whole concept' of getting up in the morning in time to eat a proper breakfast had disappeared, she said.

Ms Soubry has also warned of the negative impact of the culture of TV dinners.

Set mealtimes help to provide structure in children's lives and discourage them from snacking on crisps and fast food, she said.

The comments below have not been moderated.

Would like to even get a lunch break! I work as a clinician in the nhs & work non stop from 7.30 to 5 with no time for a proper break. Either eat at my desk or whilst at a lunch time meeting!

Stupid Woman. Not all companies make gazillions and can afford to give their staff the luxury of an hour lunch!! I work for a very small company and at times it gets extremely busy so I often eat at my desk!! I just want to get the work done and asap!!

If that is her idea of disgusting, she has led a very sheltered life!

Unfortunately we don't all have the luxury of a tax payer subsidised restaurant at work. My work canteen is an upturned milk crate equipped with a 300 year old kettle.

Lunch break? What's that? I haven't had the chance of one of those in 15 years Meet the real world lovey it doesn't happen

Unfortunately Ms Soubry the general public who work in the real world where meetings do take place over lunch hours due to very busy schedules, multiple time zones ie if you work with the Far East, Europe and the US then the UK lunch time is the only time that is vaguely compatible for getting all these people together. A lot of us don't have the luxury of having an organisation mandate no meetings between 12:00 and 14:00 as do some councils. Another MP who knows jack about us poor sods who fund her role and expenses!

In a perfect world it would be nice to get away for half an hour or so and take the time to have a proper lunch break. We don't get paid any more for working through but we are made to feel guilty if we don't. Maybe it is time we went back to having proper lunch breaks. Not taking proper breaks can cause other health issues, as I found out the hard way. Now I make sure I take my lunch. The same amount of work gets done and stress levels are reduced.

It may well be disgusting but I would suggest the health minister tries to spend some time in a pressured working environment, so that he understands why some of us eat our sandwiches at our desks in 5-10 minutes if we are lucky despite the fact that companies claim to be giving us 1 hour for our lunch breaks. Most of my colleagues don't know what 1 hour lunch breaks mean despite the fact that we are entitled to it on paper. If we don't do whatever it takes to deliver what we have to deliver, that will mean no job and no job means no taxes to support the health minister's salary and lunch breaks. Think about that before you go to bed.

For goodness sake, this woman annoys me beyond belief

So, she won't use the word "fat" around her little preciouses at home, but it's okay to use against her constituents, the people who put her where she is. She's disgusting.

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