An average of 650 calories are consumed by women working in offices through snacking, new research has found.
The study, which was carried out by MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, found that 87 per cent of women admitted to consuming snacks while at work.
Researchers then got them to list the foods they eat and how regularly and calculated the average number of calories.
It showed that 51 per cent of respondents regularly eat between 850 and 950 calories while sitting at their desks.
This equates to a third of the amount the government recommends a woman should consume for the whole day in order to stay healthy.
There was a certain amount of deviation from this as nine per cent reported eating only 150 to 250 calories of snack food throughout the day.
Conversely two per cent admitted that their daily intake was closer to between 850 and 950 calories.
Nearly half of those polled put boredom down as the reason for eating such foods, with 11 per cent of people suggesting that partaking in office snacks was a sociable thing to do.
Mark Pearson, chairman of MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, said: “In an office environment, it can be very easy give in to snacking on the treats available and resisting them can be very difficult.”
The most popular snack was chocolate, followed by fruit and then crisps for the 1,947 people working full-time in offices who were interviewed.
64 per cent of these said that their snacking was far more widespread at work than at home where they eat less between meals.
Calories are units of energy which are consumed in food and drink and equate to 4.18 joules each and when not used are stored as fat.
The concept was originally defined in 1824 by Nicolas Clement, but the word did enter the dictionary until 1867.
