In a nationally representative population of Korean workers aged 20–64 years, this study examined the relationship between using workplace foodservices and skipping meals. We found that skipping meals was significantly associated with not using workplace foodservices, after adjusting for potential confounders including sociodemographic and health-related covariates.
Evidence has been found regarding the association between the use of institutional foodservices at the workplace and skipping meals, with some previous studies showing the potential link between specific working hours or conditions and skipping meals [21–25].
Eating behaviour is known to be affected by a variety of factors including individual perceptions of health or nutritional benefits, physical access, and socioeconomic environmental factors [26, 27]. A previous study showed that skipping breakfast was associated with low familial socioeconomic status and sedentary lifestyles [28]. This is partly in line with our findings that workers who skipped meals had lower household incomes. In addition, our finding that those in the skipping meals group were younger is consistent with that of a recent study in Korea [3]. The association between using workplace foodservices and skipping meals in this study may be potentially explained by factors such as physical access and social environments. Workplace foodservice facilities provide workers with high accessibility and convenience, which likely contribute to the sustainability of their eating behaviours, eventually making them habitual. In addition, the workplace is considered a place where most adults spend a majority of their day, and workplace foodservice facilities are usually located in easily accessible places, which could also contribute toward a reduction in meal-skipping behaviour [29]. Previous studies have shown the relationship of specific working conditions, such as rotating shift work, temporary employment, and long working hours, with skipping meals [21–25]. These social environmental factors may provide an indirect basis for the effect of the use of workplace foodservices on meal-skipping behaviour in daily work life, which can have a great impact on maintaining regular schedules, including meal times, while spending the day with other people. Nevertheless, it is possible that workers who regularly eat three meals a day are more likely to frequently use workplace foodservices. Therefore, further research on the underlying mechanism of this eating behaviour is needed in the future.
The proportion of meal skippers was lower among users of workplace foodservices than among non-users for every meal, though we could not estimate these statistical significances; among the three meal types, the highest rate of meal skipping was seen for breakfast (74.2%) in the study participants. Eating breakfast has been extensively reported to have potential benefits, including an increase in adequate nutrient intakes, leading to improved nutritional quality and healthy dietary habits [8, 9]. Furthermore, it has been shown that diet quality was higher in workplace food service users than among individuals consuming homemade or eating-out meals [29]. Our findings suggest that using workplace foodservices may contribute to having healthy dietary behaviours and to higher nutritional quality in workers. In addition, given that previous studies reported a higher rate of meal skipping in temporary workers than in full-time employees [25], the provision of workplace foodservice meals will also help minimise food insecurity, in terms of dietary inequality, by reducing the incidence of meal skipping.
This study has some limitations. We could not conclude a temporal relationship between using workplace foodservices and skipping meals as this study was conducted with a cross-sectional design. Thus, we could not determine clearly whether the use of workplace foodservices preceded the development of dietary behaviours such as meal skipping. We analysed data collected using a 24-hour dietary recall method, which may not be appropriate to assess an individual’s habitual diet. However, this limitation is mitigated by the large sample size and the high probability of the identification of diverse dietary behaviours. There is a possibility of response bias as self-reported data were included in this study.
Despite these limitations, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the association between using workplace foodservices and skipping meals using recent data collected from a large representative Korean population. This study suggests the importance of implementing dietary interventions, with the frequent use of workplace foodservices for workers, to potentially reduce poor eating behaviours such as skipping meals.