Doctors hors d’oeuvres

Andrew Pennycuick looks at the ways in which hospitality professionals are increasingly maintaining their mental and physical wellbeing.

It has been said that working in the hospitality industry is terrible for your health. There is a degree of truth to the concept of a chef’s breakfast - an espresso and a Marlboro red - once having been the norm, but it is less so today. Although it is a challenge to look after your health in the hospitality industry, it is not an insurmountable one. Increasingly, restaurants are looking out for the health of their staff, and hospitality professionals are doing more to look after themselves.

There is no doubt that it is harder to stay fit and healthy while working in hospitality than it is in other industries. For a start, the work is physically demanding on the body. Any restaurant worker will testify that a long shift can be torture on the feet and crippling for your back. For the brave among you, a Google search of “chef’s arse” will reveal another example of the collateral damage that can come from working in a restaurant. Not only is the work physical, but the average working day is longer in hospitality, and the working hours do not fit the standard 9 to 5. Try finding a gym open at 1am. Fitting-in exercise around demanding working hours is no picnic.

Furthermore, maintaining a balanced diet can be equally troublesome. As any chef will tell you, the concept of three meals a day does not translate into the kitchen, as they taste throughout the day. Just as it can be difficult to exercise after work, it can be just as hard to find a healthy meal at the end of a shift. When finishing late in the evening, the only places left open to grab a bite to eat tend to be catering for those finishing a drinking session and wanting a kebab.

Staff meals are an interesting area when it comes to healthy eating. They are a central part of a restaurant’s daily rhythm and lots of kitchens make a real effort to provide a balanced meal for their team, although this is not always the case. As any nutritionist will tell you protein is key to a balanced diet, yet as any chef will tell you protein doesn’t come cheap – therefore staff food often lacks the necessary nutritional balance. Staff food tends to be a ‘like it or lump it’ meal – and if you work in a restaurant that does not provide balanced staff food it is extremely hard and costly to find an alternative. Staff meals are critical to morale in any restaurant – the obvious problem with this is that most food that raises morale also raises blood pressure.

The challenge of staying healthy while working in hospitality is complicated by the need to be physically fit to meet the demands of the work. Working on the floor and in the kitchen requires remarkable stamina, often with little sleep. If anything, the physical toll of the occupation makes it even more important to eat well and keep fit. So how do hospitality professionals deal with this challenge? Whereas in years gone by hospitality professionals might not have been the healthiest individuals, this is no longer the case. There are countless examples of industry workers performing remarkable fitness feats and it is clear that many are meeting the challenge head on.

Within the industry there exists an elite group of the ultra fit, spearheaded by Alan Murchison, owner of La Bécasse in Ludlow. Murchison has translated his success in the kitchen into triathlon competitions and is a multiple European and World AG Duathlon champion. In the same ilk, Gordon Ramsay is now competing in Ironman triathlons. Those inclined can even join Gordon’s GR100 team to help raise money for charity. The notion of an ultra-fit chef at first appears a curious one – at odds with the colloquial conception of ‘never trust a skinny chef’. However, on pausing for thought the link makes perfect sense. It is the nature of these individuals as high achieving perfectionists to seek elite results – whether that be Michelin stars or Iron Man medals. In the same way, one might imagine that if an elite athlete turned their mind to being a good cook they too could achieve professional results.

There also exists a particular affinity between Michelin stars and marathon running. Michel Roux of Le Gavroche is a veteran of more than 20 races and even penned ‘The Marathon Chef’ cookbook for runners with a penchant for good food. Every Easter a brigade of top chefs line up to run the London Marathon with Phil Howard and Gordon Ramsay running it every year. The organisers of the Jersey Marathon have taken note – every year the ‘Hospitality Cup’ goes to the first hospitality professional over the line.

Away from exercise, there is also a clear movement towards healthier eating within the hospitality community. CODE’s ‘Staff Only’ series has chronicled the staff food served across the capital, and a recurrent theme throughout is that restaurants are making a real effort to provide a balanced meal. For instance Martin Morales, founder of Ceviche and Andina, strives to provide a healthy diet for his staff focussing on Andean superfoods and Peruvian ingredients.

It is clear that the industry as a whole is certainly getting healthier and that the particular challenges that face hospitality professionals in this regard can be overcome. In all walks of life there are those that give a damn about their health and those that don’t – but as society as a whole has started to pay more attention to healthy lifestyle choices this trend has permeated the industry. It is important that restaurants continue to take note and make it easier for their staff to lead healthy lifestyles. This can only further the industry wide effort to market hospitality as a worthy career choice – even helping to ease the current recruitment crisis as a result by changing the industry’s image.

It is also easy to lose sight of another, often neglected element in this area - mental health. A lot of good work has been done recently, for example Hospitality Action’s ‘It Could Happen To You’ campaign, which depicted Jason Atherton as struggling with addiction and Ashley Palmer-Watts suffering from depression. However, a lot more needs to be done to tackle what is a real problem within the industry and this vital element to health cannot be ignored. Just as hospitality professionals begin to pay more attention to exercise and diet, so too must attention be paid to mental health.

Andrew Pennycuick

@andypennycuick