More Work, Less Lunch?

When was the last time you took a break for lunch?  I don't mean eating at your desk, I mean getting up and going to get lunch.  Eating leisurely with a friend or a book, and then returning to work refreshed.

For many, the response is an immediate "not recently," a trend driven often times by high workplace expectations and heavy workloads.

Experts say there are no national statistics on lunch breaks, but smaller surveys find that up to two-thirds of workers skip lunch or eat at their desks.

"We generally worked through lunch or ate during a conference meeting," Pierce, now a university marketing assistant in Michigan, told LiveScience. "It was definitely an atmosphere where if somebody needed you and you were at lunch, that would be taken as a very negative thing — even if it was a completely normal lunch break and you were two rooms away."

The trend of skipping lunch is becomming  more commonplace...

"I think the expectation is that more people are expected to work more with less," Hartmann told LiveScience. "Workloads have been exceptionally high and people don't feel like they can take the time to eat."

Some say taking breaks can actually improve your focus and better your creativity.