Dining al desko: Could eating lunch at your desk make you fat?

THERE’S a good reason the word wizards took the phrase ‘dining al fresco’ and turned it into the rather ugly ‘dining al desko’ — an estimated 63% of Irish workers eat lunch at their desks.

But wolfing down a sandwich in front of the computer is not only bad for your health, eating lunch while checking your emails is also more likely to make you fat.

In a 2013 study, British diet company Forza Supplements found that people tend to make less healthy choices when they eat at their desks — processed foods ingested by the plastic forkful — and to make more trips to the vending machine or shop during the day. Chocolate for the afternoon slump, anyone?