New research by trade insurance specialist’s construcaquote.com has revealed that the average British construction worker will eat upwards of 1,500 calories more than the recommended daily intake. Despite this revelation, less than one fifth of workers polled considered themselves to be at all overweight.  

As part of its ongoing research into insights and trends surrounding the construction industry, a constructatquote.com has investigated the eating habits and diets of a group of British construction workers, to look into how healthy they are compared to those with more stationary and less active jobs.

Researchers at constructaquote.com polled a total of 2,193 male UK construction workers, all of whom were aged 18 or over. In order to keep the results as unbiased as possible, those taking part in the research were spread equally amongst each of the different UK regions.

Respondents were initially asked to consider how much food they eat during a typical working day, and asked to estimate how many calories it was likely to add up to. The average answer was 4,050 calories, 1,500 more than the recommended daily amount for a man.

When asked to select the most common meals they ate during a normal working day from an extensive list of different foods, the most popular answers were:

1. Breakfast baguettes (bacon, sausage, egg etc) – (64%)
2. Meat pie/pasties – (51%)
3. Burger and chips- (48%)
4. English fry-up- (35%)
5. Fried chicken – (33%)

By comparison, only 17% said that ‘sandwiches’ were among the most common meals they eat while at work, with only 4% regularly eating salads.

When asked if they believed that they regularly ate unhealthily during their working hours, the vast majority of respondents (71%) agreed that this was the case, with more than half of these participants (51%) revealing that this was as a result of ‘not being able to access healthy food options’, and a further 22% confessing they were ‘lazy’ with their diets.

Interestingly, when asked if they were classed as overweight for their height and build, less than one fifth of participants (19%) admitted to being on the heavy side despite eating a seemingly unhealthy amount of food each day, with the majority classing themselves as either healthy or underweight.

Lyndon Wood, CEO and Founder of constructaquote.com, had the following to say about the findings of the study:

“4,000 calories a day is ok for manual workers but this largely depends on what it is they are eating. Quick sugar fixes or proper plant based foods with plenty of fibre? Plenty of vegetable and some fruit is well recommended. Gone are the days of big hairy assed builders!”