Workers forget to eat their lunch many times a week

More than half of Americans skip lunch in order to work more, according to a recent survey.

The poll of 2,000 employed Americans, with a quota of 1,000 working parents with school-aged kids, revealed that 55% forgo eating lunch on hectic days to be more productive.

Respondents also admitted to completely forgetting to eat lunch two days out of the work week, on average.

In fact, more than four in 10 workers (43%) rely on reminders to eat a midday meal, with women being significantly more likely than men (63% vs. 48%) to need a reminder to eat during the workday.

Commissioned by Buddig for National Sandwich Month in August and conducted by Talker Research, the survey found that although 63% of working Americans eat a full, substantial meal for lunch most days, a significant number (37%) confessed to eating more of a snack for lunch, or grazing on little snack foods throughout the day in place of a meal.

More than one in 10 (13%) also admitted they’ll typically work and eat lunch at the same time on a regular workday, instead of taking a break from their tasks to eat.

Looking at differences between subgroups, men (91%) are more likely than women (85%) to pause their work to eat lunch, and hybrid workers (94%) are more likely than remote (85%) and in-person employees (87%) to take a true lunch break.

A third of employed Americans (33%) also revealed that they’ll usually eat their midday meal at their desk or workstation, with remote workers being more guilty of this (41%) than hybrid (38%) and in-person (28%) respondents.

On average, workers eat lunch at 12:48 p.m., and their typical lunch hour is actually only 35 minutes, on average.

For those who step away from their work to eat, many (43%) multitask during their downtime, with women being more likely than men (51% vs. 33%) to multitask while eating lunch.

And multitaskers most commonly check social media (70%), text (64%) and make phone calls (55%) during their lunch hours, even though most respondents (84%) agreed that taking offline lunch breaks, sans screens or technology, is good for their health.

“While it can be tempting to power through your workday and skip taking a lunch, it’s important to give yourself a break and eat a full, substantial meal,” said Amy Krider, senior brand manager at Buddig. “Not only do we need all the energy we can get from a filling meal to do our best work, we also need little breaks from our screens and tasks during the day as well for our health and wellness.”

On a typical workday, 62% of employed Americans usually bring lunch from home, a third (33%) will buy it and 5% are lucky enough to have their meal provided by their employer.

Three-quarters of workers (75%) said that sandwiches are their go-to lunch meal, and 70% of those with school-aged kids said their kids also include sandwiches among their lunchtime favorites.

Looking closer at mealtime menus for both parents and kids, working Americans cited sandwiches (64%), salads (45%) and hamburgers (33%) as their most common lunch staples, and those with kids in school said their children will eat sandwiches (58%), pre-made meal kits (36%) and pizza (30%) most often.

Health-wise, the quality of working parents' meals falls a bit behind their kids’. While 83% of parents with school-aged kids said their children’s lunches are healthy, only 74% could say the same for themselves.

The results also revealed that hybrid workers reported eating the healthiest lunches (79%) compared to remote (71%) and in-person (65%) workers.

And surprisingly, those whose lunches are catered by their employers reported having healthier lunches (75%) than those who bring homemade lunches (72%) and buy lunch (62%).

“Busy work schedules mean that many don’t have time to pack healthy, protein-filled lunches,” said Krider. “And working parents have the added struggle of making sure their kiddos get nutritious, filling meals while at school. That's where the classic sandwich can come in handy. Protein-filled and versatile, it’s included among respondents' favorite lunch meals for a reason.”

Survey methodology:

Talker Research surveyed 2,000 employed Americans with a quota of 1,000 parents of school-aged children; the survey was commissioned by Buddig and administered and conducted online by Talker Research between July 15 and July 18, 2025.

We are sourcing from a non-probability frame and the two main sources we use are:

• Traditional online access panels — where respondents opt-in to take part in online market research for an incentive
• Programmatic — where respondents are online and are given the option to take part in a survey to receive a virtual incentive usually related to the online activity they are engaging in

Those who did not fit the specified sample were terminated from the survey. As the survey is fielded, dynamic online sampling is used, adjusting targeting to achieve the quotas specified as part of the sampling plan.

Regardless of which sources a respondent came from, they were directed to an Online Survey, where the survey was conducted in English; a link to the questionnaire can be shared upon request. Respondents were awarded points for completing the survey. These points have a small cash-equivalent monetary value.

Cells are only reported on for analysis if they have a minimum of 80 respondents, and statistical significance is calculated at the 95% level. Data is not weighted, but quotas and other parameters are put in place to reach the desired sample.

Interviews are excluded from the final analysis if they failed quality-checking measures. This includes:

• Speeders: Respondents who complete the survey in a time that is quicker than one-third of the median length of interview are disqualified as speeders
• Open ends: All verbatim responses (full open-ended questions as well as other please specify options) are checked for inappropriate or irrelevant text
• Bots: Captcha is enabled on surveys, which allows the research team to identify and disqualify bots
• Duplicates: Survey software has “deduping” based on digital fingerprinting, which ensures nobody is allowed to take the survey more than once

It is worth noting that this survey was only available to individuals with internet access, and the results may not be generalizable to those without internet access.