Can Nutrition Help Mitigate the Challenges of Night Shift Work?

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• Can Nutrition Help Mitigate the Challenges of Night Shift Work?

12 August 2025

Night shift workers face unique health challenges, from sleep disorders to poor physical & mental health. Could healthier food options at work help combat these risks?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) states that 8.7 million people in the UK work in the night-time economy, including in factories, warehouses, retail, call centres and the public sector.

Eurest, part of Compass Group UK & Ireland, has published a white paper to investigate how access to healthy food during night-time hours can better support shift workers.

 

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A 'Double Burden of Dietary Risk'

 

There is currently little research on the impact of working nights on employees and whether nutrition might help mitigate associated problems such as lack of sleep and mental health challenges. Dr Rachel Gibson, Registered Dietitian and Lecturer in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King's College London, contributed to the Eurest white paper and examined the dietary behaviour of shift workers. 

According to Dr Gibson, night shift workers tend to make less healthy food choices due to limited access to food and rest breaks, higher levels of hormones that signal hunger and emotional factors such as tiredness and stress. 

Our circadian rhythms are also disrupted by eating and being active during the night, as we become out of sync with our internal body clocks. 

Dr Gibson said: “It is likely that shift workers have a double burden of dietary risk, due to eating less healthy diets and eating during the night. Working shifts requires employees to alter many aspects of daily behaviour - such as time of sleeping, activities and eating.

“Studies have shown that shift working employees make less healthy food choices. Diet patterns reported in night workers are typically low in fruit, vegetables and fibre and higher in sugary snack foods and drinks, for instance.”

Dr Gibson also referenced research that investigated the links between working shifts and poor health. This research showed a relationship between working shifts and poor cardiometabolic health (such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes) and gastrointestinal disorders (such as constipation or reflux).

 

Case Study at a Major Technology Client

 

Eurest surveyed a sample of night shift workers at one of their major technology clients, to find out their views on catering provision and how eating patterns impact their health. The company has four workplace restaurants, including one specifically for the night shift.

78 per cent said they change their eating patterns to match their work/sleep pattern, and 48 per cent have only one break per night shift. 41 per cent had their main meal during their shift.

Ryan Holmes, Culinary Director at Eurest, said: “It was about the lack of access to food when they want it – especially healthy food. They wanted the salad bar to be open at night and healthy snacks available. For those that take very short breaks, they wanted healthy grab and go options.

Eurest responded to the findings by introducing “Cook to Order food” for the client – three stations where food is cooked fresh in front of people every night. They also introduced more front-of-house chefs on night shifts, and more flexibility in choosing what goes into “cook to order” meals.

Ryan added: “What’s important is that shift workers are not made to feel like second class citizens or forgotten about. The aim is to offer them the same or better than the day shift, with enhanced grab-and-go options that are healthy and nutritious.”

“Having a different sleep pattern fundamentally goes against what the body wants to do - so, we need to give people the right food to stay alert, stay awake and stay well.

“As a result, we completely changed our catering offer for a large client in the tech sector following a research project. We hope that further academic and industry research can drive a continued focus on the issue.”

Picture: a photograph showing a person looking at a tablet in a dark room, with their face lit by the tablet. The person is wearing a protective hard hat. Image Credit: Adobe Stock

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 12 August 2025

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