According to the Worker’s Health Centre, studies show that shiftwork and shifts with extended hours can have significant adverse effects on health, workplace accident rates, absenteeism and a worker’s personal life.

Over 70% of men and 50% of women working shift work are overweight.   Due to altered eating habits when working shift work, workers often experience higher rates of gastrointestinal problems, including indigestion, heartburn, or stomach ulcers, constipation, diarrhea and gas.  Other issues include increased heart diseases, social problems and increased error and accident rates.

Working Nights, an excellent blog on, well, working at night, talks about a recent study in the journal Obesity that has found that when we eat may be more of a driver of weight gain than what we eat.  This obviously has significant impact for shift workers.

In the study, mice were fed a high-fat diet during the time they’d normally eat, the regular day-time hours on their daily circadian cycle, gained 20% in weight over six weeks. But mice fed the same high-fat diet during hours they should have been sleeping gained 48%!  This new study was initiated to consider the potential impact on at night shift workers, who eat the most of their daily food intake during hours when humans are usually sleeping. The researchers believe that findings for people would be consistent the results within the mice population.

But there is good news!

Working Nights has also published some information about a new study by scientists at the University of Illinois that has found that soluble fiber, found in oats, nuts, and apples, strengthens the immune system and reduces the inflammation related to obesity-related diseases (e.g. diabetes and heart disease).  These results will appear in the May 2010 issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

The bottom line is to enhance their immune systems, shift workers should consider the amount of soluble fiber they eat.  Of all grains, oats have the highest proportion of soluble fiber.

Working Nights suggest that  shift workers need to stock up on high fiber nutrition bars.  These are easy to pack for consumption while working at night.  Our bodies’ digestive system slows down at night, even if we’re awake working.  So, employees working the night shift should eat light meals.  To read more about the importance of eating the right foods when working shift work, click here.

Companies who have shift workers should consider making oat based bars available to their workers through vending machines.

Personally, I think that all shift workers need to eat porridge for dinner just because it’s yum!  Add some chopped nuts and sliced apple and you have a great meal that your body will thank you for.