By Tracy Stuckrath

It’s the day of your organization’s staff party. As you walk into the party, you see that pizza has been ordered. Your heart sinks. Pizza is not a safe or viable meal for you because you have celiac disease. What makes it worse is that despite the fact that you know the restaurant catering the lunch offers gluten-free pizza, only “regular” pizza was ordered, along with a tossed salad.

As you prepare to eat the salad, you read the ingredients on the salad dressing and find out it too, contains gluten. It will just be iceberg lettuce and a few tomatoes for you. You feel left out and overlooked—and hungry. You’ve worked at the organization for a few years and thought your colleagues knew about your medical health.

Did you know that celiac disease, food allergies, and intolerances are considered invisible disabilities? Did you know that people with celiac disease, diabetes, and food allergies have the same protections afforded by the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) as others with disabilities?

The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 defined a disability as any individual with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. The 2008 extension of the Act was written to add additional terminology to major life activities—eating, digestive system, immune system, cardiovascular system—and, in turn, providing civil rights protections for individuals with allergies, including food allergies, and other dietary needs, like celiac disease. In an essence, it was updated to better recognize invisible disabilities.

These invisible disabilities affect many of employees, and it’s important to be mindful of them when planning office activities, meals, or outside functions. Here are some of the most commonly encountered food-related invisible disabilities and some ways to keep them in mind when hosting work-related meals.

Food allergies. Triggered by eating, touching or inhaling a food protein, reactions can range from mild (hives, coughing) to severe (throat closing, chest pain, fainting) and can be potentially fatal. While more than 170 foods are known to cause allergic reactions, eight foods that include wheat, egg, milk, tree nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish and soy cause more than 90 percent of all allergic reactions.

Before food is served at work, employees should be asked if anyone has food allergies and what should be avoided to keep them safe. Label all foods with the allergens they contain. Depending on the severity of the allergy and the trigger, inform all employees who might also bring food to share of the need to include information on ingredients.

Diabetes. A healthy meal for diabetics is generally the same as healthy eating for anyone—low in fat, moderate in salt and sugar, lean protein, non-starchy vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and fruit. Avoid serving only heavily processed convenience foods—fried foods, food and beverages with added sugar, and foods that have excess butter, cheese and oils.

Digestive disorders. Many triggers for these disorders—celiac disease, Crohn’s, diverticular diseases, colitis, colon polyps, and even cancer—are food related and require people to avoid specific foods to avoid severe pain, missing work, or going to the hospital.

Heart conditions. Diet is an important risk factor in avoiding and possibly reversing heart diseases. Some medications for heart disease do not interact well with specific foods and can decrease the effectiveness and cause adverse effects—high blood pressure, heart failure, and strokes.

If an employee lets you know that they must avoid specific foods, they may be doing it for an invisible medical disability. These are just a few examples of the many diseases, conditions, dysfunctions, and alternative ways of experiencing the world that fall under the classification of invisible disabilities because they don’t require an assistive device like a wheelchair, cane, glasses, or hearing aid.

In most cases, participating in meetings and events at work or while traveling for work makes it close to impossible to completely avoid allergens, either because people can’t avoid an ingredient or they can’t control for cross-contamination. When this discomfort or worse, life-threatening dangers, are ignored by those hosting meetings and events in the office, however, an organization is not only ignoring duty of care, it is endangering people who have an invisible disability.

Tracy Stuckrath is founder and chief connecting officer of Thrive! Meetings and Events, Greenville, South Carolina (www.thrivemeetings.com).

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