Obesity is a major concern in the United States and has a multitude of negative physical and mental health consequences. Proper nutrition and exercise are important elements to initiating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Since most people spend a large amount of their time working, it is important that organizations create an atmosphere that is conducive to employees being able to eat healthy diets and exercise regularly. The social and environmental climate in terms of health was examined through the construct of a Workplace Nutrition and Exercise Climate (WNEC), defined here as the situational, social, and environmental factors within an organization that encourage and provide support to employees interested in eating healthy and exercising. This study sought to develop a scale for this construct and test its reliability, validity, and relationships to important health behavior and outcome variables. One-hundred and fifty-six participants were recruited to take an online survey, as well as provide contact information for 2 co-workers. Forty-three of these participants were successfully matched directly to 1 or 2 co-workers in their organization. The scale showed evidence for reliability, through high internal consistency and interrater reliability. The results showed that the scale should be considered a single construct, but that individual nutrition or exercise can be measured if the user has empirical evidence that it is necessary for their research question. The scale also improved on a previous measure of health climate in a number of ways. The construct was directly related to organizational health benefits, self-reported healthy diet, job satisfaction, and depression. Additionally, while the initial simple mediation model proposed was not supported by the data (neither proper diet nor exercising behaviors individually mediated the relationship between the new construct of workplace nutrition and exercise climate and the physical and mental health variables), some exploratory moderation models showed promising leads for future researchers. Specifically, males and females differed on their relationships between the current climate construct and the self-reported healthy diet and total exercise frequency variables. Given the wealth of previous research that shows the negative effects of obesity, if these findings continue to be supported, it may indicate that WNEC plays a crucial, primary prevention role in helping employees get and/or stay healthy. Future research should continue to look at this new construct of WNEC, design studies that allow for aggregation and investigation of the shared climate, and determine how researchers and practitioners can create a healthy WNEC in an organization.

Inledning: Målområdet “Arbete, arbetsförhållande och arbetsmiljö” är ett av Sveriges folkhälsopolitiska målområden som Sverige ska arbeta mot för att uppnå en god och jämlik hälsa. Arbetsplatsen är en arena där vuxna tillbringar mycket tid, vilket gör det viktigt för hälsoskapande insatser. Restaurangbranschen har många riskfaktorer och det kan därför vara bra att istället fundera över vilka resurser som upprätthåller hälsa på arbetsplatsen. Syfte: Syftet var att undersöka upplevelser av arbetsrelaterade resurser som bidrog till hälsa hos restaurangmedarbetare på ett företag i södra Sverige. Metod: Sex intervjuer genomfördes med en kvalitativ metod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats med en innehållsanalys. Resultat: Kollegorna var den starkaste resursen som bidrog till hälsa som framkom i resultatet där gemenskapen och kommunikationen med kollegorna påtalades. Andra starka resurser som kom upp var det stödjande ledarskapet och kunder som motiverade. Det framkom även förebyggande faktorer. Slutsats: Det fanns många resurser som främjar hälsa men även faktorer som förebygger sjukdom och i relation till dessa kunde två teorier appliceras och skapa en förståelse för det empiriska materialet. Genom att veta vilka resurser som fanns på arbetsplatsen så blir det lättare att sats / Introduction: “Work, working relationship and working environment” is one of the Swedish public health policy goal areas that Sweden must work towards to achieve good and equal health. The workplace is an arena where adults spend a lot of time which makes it important for health promoting efforts. The restaurant industry has many risk factors and therefore it may be good to consider which resources maintain the health. Purpose: To investigate experiences of work-related resources that contribute to health among restaurant employees within a business in southern Sweden. Method: Six interviews were performed with a qualitative approach in form of semi-structured interviews. The empirical material has been analyzed with a content analysis. Results: The colleagues were the strongest resource that contributed to health where the community and communication with colleagues were mentioned. Other strong resources that were brought up included a supporting leadership and customers that motivated them. There were also preventing factors. Conclusion: There were many resources that promote health but also factors that prevent illness. Two theories could be applied to create an understanding of the empirical material. By knowing which resources that exist in the workplace, it can be easier to invest in strengthening them. Good health in the workplace can lead to a sustainable working life and contribute to equal health.