Intervention Sectors

Making it easier to eat well

A proper diet is essential to good health. Yet, people are cooking less, eating more, and fighting weight problems on a daily basis. Attesting to this is the fact that the average weight for the population as a whole has increased some 10 kilos (about 22 pounds) over the past 20 years!

The pace of modern life is such that family meals around the table are more and more of a rarity. This, in turn, is giving rise to other types of social problems. We now eat prepared meals -- be it by industry or in restaurants -- any time, any place, and often alone. Speed and ease of preparation are often more important than ingredients, calorie count or even taste.

Our food environment has changed drastically

U.S. food and beverage companies spend about $36 billion a year to promote their products. In addition to advertising, marketing strategies, too, incite consumers to eat more. Larger servings are meant to give the impression that we are getting our money’s worth. New products are launched at the rate of 10,000 a year in a circuit where products number more than 300,000. These new refined products are often high in sugar, fat, and sodium and have a high energy density. What’s more, they can be found everywhere: gas stops, drug stores, movie theatres, subway stations, and so on.

The time has come to create a food environment that fosters and facilitates sound eating habits. There are many possible solutions to the problem, including the actions taken by the Weight Coalition.

Fostering physical activity and energy consumption

Even though we are conscious of the beneficial impact of physical activity on our well-being, health, quality of life, academic performance, and productivity, we still remain inactive.

In fact, Quebecois have never been more sedentary than they are today. And this is not necessary by choice. This means that we must look beyond individual responsibility in order to understand this social phenomenon and find a solution to this serious problem.

Our sedentary lifestyle

• Fewer and fewer children walk to school.
• Too many youths do not get at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day (recommended by the World Health Organization).
• There are fewer and fewer playgrounds and parks in the cities and those that remain are often unsafe, poorly maintained or ill-suited for what young people today like to do.
• Leisure activities that necessitate no energy consumption, such as watching T.V. and playing video games, have become more and more accessible.
• Increased violence in certain neighbourhoods has bred a sense of insecurity in families and the population in general; this has tended to reduce outings and outdoor activities.
• Cities have developed as a function of the automobile, thus rendering modes of active travel, such as walking and biking, more and more difficult. Only recently have municipal authorities begun to encourage adults to walk or use public transit. In the suburbs, most services are not within walking distance and must be reached by motor vehicle.
• Technological innovations such as computers, elevators, automatic doors, snow-blowers and remote controls have contributed to reduce our outlay of physical energy.

Sustainable development promotes health as well

Many social groups that work to protect the environment and to promote sustainable development share the same objectives, albeit often for different reasons. The convergence of our interests, the complementarity of our arguments, and the coordination of some of our actions could contribute to transform our built environment so as to facilitate physical activity and energy consumption and, by the same token, improve the quality of life in our communities.

Making it as easy to walk, bike or take public transportation as it is to get around by automobile and facilitating physical activity and energy consumption in our life settings (e.g., school, workplace and municipality) are some of the solutions that need to be implemented in order to fight the current obesity epidemic.

Social norms need revising

Media and advertising are everywhere. They contribute to create social norms and shape in a radical way how we relate to the human body, food, and many other things. In particular, they convey a standard of beauty, both exclusive and unattainable, that celebrates extreme thinness and eternal youth.

Cultural pressures lead many men, women, adolescents, and children to take an interest in their bodies more for esthetic reasons than for health motives. According to experts, the promotion of this physical ideal as the only valid model of beauty can encourage harmful behaviours, such as serial dieting, and can have various repercussions on health, including a drop in energy level due to food deprivation, low self-esteem, eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia), and certain psychological conditions.

In Quebec

• One out of two women wishes to lose weight despite being in her healthy weight category.
• 35% of 9-year-old girls try to lose weight.
• 60% of adolescent girls and boys are not happy with their body image.
• Two-thirds of girls 13 to 16 years of age try to lose weight or to control it.
• More than 15% of boys of the same age try to lose weight as well.

At the same time, in a world obsessed with slimness, being fat or considering oneself to be so turns out to be a burden at the social and psychological levels as well. Indeed, overweight adults, adolescents and children are all victims of discrimination. 

Did you know?
Already in daycare, Quebec children 4-5 years old prefer to play with kids with a healthy weight than with overweight kids.

No such thing as miracle weight-loss products!

Such a context is conducive to the proliferation of weight-loss products, services, and methods (WLPSM) that promise miracles. Generally speaking, these products and services are not effective and some are downright dangerous, not to mention that they actually contribute to weight gain in the population. Indeed, studies have shown that the use of WLPSM was likely, over the medium to long term, to result in failure and the reversal of any weight loss. What’s more, they could have serious consequences for the physical and psychological health of consumers.

Yet, they are subject to no specific regulatory framework. We believe that the WLPSM industry should be held accountable for the claims it makes, that it should have to demonstrate the innocuousness of its products, and that a proper system of supervision needs to be implemented that includes harsher punitive measures.

Impact of food marketing on children

Children are exposed to more than 40,000 advertisements each year. A large portion of these ads promote junk food, sweetened cereals, soft drinks, and treats. Highly processed foods are the focus of aggressive marketing and ubiquitous advertising.
In Quebec, the Consumer Protection Act prohibits advertising directed at children under the age of 13 years. Unfortunately, these rules do not come with sufficient supervision to guarantee that our children are truly protected against marketing and advertising.

Essential measures must be put in place to counter this phenomenon.