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We’ve mentioned from time to time the Canadian government’s curious efforts to keep us all eating plenty of salt. A weekend story from the Toronto Star details how it’s the kind of game that the provinces can get in on too. Specifically Ontario, which is trying to figure out how to deal with the oldest and most obese population it has ever seen. The province has pretty clearly ruled out even the blandest of regulations to help Ontarians control their weight.
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All stories relating to obesity
Queen’s Park takes a cue from Ottawa, demurs on fast-food calorie labels
Environmentalism vs. health throwdown: two Girl Scouts launch petition against cookies made with palm oil
Girl Scout cookies: delicious but potentially habitat-destroying (Image: Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar)
This story has all the right ingredients for a made-for-TV movie: multinational food producers, the war on trans fats, a dash of environmentalism and two young heroines caught in the middle of it all. Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva, two Grade 10 Girl Scouts from Ann Arbor, Michigan, have launched a petition to the Girl Scouts of the USA to stop using palm oil in their signature cookies—and not because it’s high in saturated fat.
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Cancer rates lower in Toronto than in the rest of Ontario: CCO
Cancer Care Ontario has released data suggesting that people in the GTA are dying of cancer at a rate less frequent than the provincial average. The Toronto Sun’s reporting suggests that there are three big reasons Torontonians are doing better than people elsewhere in Ontario: fewer smokers, lower rates of obesity and a mix of people from places with fewer instances of cancer.
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MPP Rosario Marchese floats private member’s bill destined to make Doug Ford very, very angry
Marchese v. Ford
Only days after the City of Toronto voted not to further restrict the sale of sugary pop through vending machines on city properties (with Doug Ford’s memorable endorsement of free-market obesity-mongering), an MPP has introduced a bill that must reek of what Ford called “socialism at its best”: Trinity-Spadina incumbent Rosario Marchese wants to ban junk food advertising that targets children.
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Battle of the bulge: committee to debate ban on pop sales at city-owned facilities
(Image: Kate Ter Harr)
Toronto’s Government Management Committee is going to debate whether or not to allow the sales of obesity-abetting pop on city property. The policy was first proposed last year, under the David Miller administration, but we already know how the new mayor feels about the whole thing. Last year, according to The Globe, Rob Ford called the ban “the most ludicrous idea I’ve ever heard. If kids want a pop, they’ll cross the street, go to a plaza and buy a pop.”
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Study: Junk food contributes to dumbening in children
Feeling more stupider? (Image: Craige Moore)
It’s no shocker that eating junk food can cause obesity, especially in children. But a new British study shows that it can also make you dumber. The Daily Mail reports that researchers at Bristol University have shown that when toddlers consume a diet of “chips, crisps, biscuits, and pizza” (that’s fries, chips, cookies and pizza), they’re more likely to end up with a lower I.Q. later in life. It’s unconfirmed as yet whether spray-tanning your children à la Toddlers and Tiaras has the same effect.
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Ottawa disbands salt task force, industry licks lips in anticipation
(Image: Lenore Edman)
For years, it’s been evident that Canadians are consuming too much salt. In response to public pressure, and growing unease over the fact that one can get the required daily dose of salt from a couple cans of pop, the federal government put together a task force in 2007 to recommend ways to reduce Canadians’ sodium intake. After four years of work, Stephen Harper is disbanding the sodium task force and handing the work off to an industry-friendly body. Because self-regulation in food has always worked like a charm.
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The world’s 10 fattest countries: Canada is out, Palau is in
Obesity: a growing problem (Image: Graham Richardson)
Despite the recent proliferation of poutine in this country, Canada has been left off the list of the fattest nations of 2010. According to GlobalPost, which used World Health Organization statistics to compile its list, most of the bad news is concentrated in the South Pacific. Not including the obligatory nod to the U.S.—number eight, with 70 per cent of its population with a BMI north of 25—the top 10 were all far-flung island states.
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Canadians are fat, even by rich-people standards
In the past few years, Toronto has been overrun by gourmet dining options of the fattening variety. Whether they’re serving gourmet poutine made with duck confit or lovingly hand-crafted burgers topped with rosemary mayo, some of the hottest places to eat are also the fattiest. That may be one of the reasons that a new study has found Canadians are getting chunky, even compared to the residents of other wealthy countries (well, not the U.S., U.K. or Australia).
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Wait—street hockey is illegal in Toronto? No wonder our kids are fat
Outlaws (Image: doviende)
Spacing publisher Matthew Blackett was at Yonge and Dundas when Sidney Crosby scored the gold-medal goal for Canada back in February. He watched as an impromptu hockey game broke out on the street, thinking: too bad that’s illegal. According to Blackett, the by-law outlawing the most Canadian of pickup games came from the pre-amalgamation version of Toronto, and became the law of the megacity afterwards. Breaking the rule comes with a $55 fine—something most hockey-playing kids don’t typically have on hand—and certainly not the kind of punishment a doctor would order when 1/3 of young male Torontonians are overweight.
And that’s why if Blackett and his supporters get their way, street hockey and other ball-playing would be legalized once again.
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New opera scams kids into healthy eating
Terror related to the childhood obesity epidemic has infected almost all media—radio, TV, newspapers, the Internet—but this is the first evidence we have of it making it all the way to opera. The Distillery District is presenting Get Stuffed (With the Good Stuff!), a “comic opera about serious decisions—making healthy food choices.”
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Junk food and cocaine pretty much the same thing: study
Jonesin' (Image: Alexey Krasavin)
Science is perfecting the art of proving the patently obvious. A new study published in Nature Neuroscience recounts how lab rats that were fed bacon, sausage and cheesecake became dependent on the high-calorie goodies in order to feel good. The co-author writes that, much like other pleasurable activities (sex, drug use), eating can trigger the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain, which can lead to addictive behaviour. The rats that were given the high-fat diet also had access to healthy rat chow, but they ignored it. This all demonstrates two things that have been evident for decades to any pet owner who’s gone through a breakup: 1) fat feels good, and 2) the deliciousness of sausage transcends the animal kingdom.
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As health problems pile up, Toronto creates a new urban food strategy
Dr. David McKeown (Photo by Toronto Emergency Management Symposium)
The board of health is proposing a new food strategy that hopes to provide families across the city with better access to food. The public health department released its consultation paper this week and hopes to have some solid ideas presented to city council by the end of the spring. David McKeown, Toronto’s medical officer of health, told the Globe:
The food system that we have now, broadly, was developed in the postwar period and was really designed to keep prices low and maximize the amount of food that goes out there. But that food, despite the fact that food prices are relatively low historically, is still not affordable for people who are of low income.
New fat attack ad ensures that we never drink pop again
Some governments are attacking obesity head-on, but none more than New York’s. As we reported a few months ago, the Big Apple’s department of health has been plastering gross ads all over public transit. Well, they just stepped up the fight with this graphic new video that went viral this week. “It’s a little disgusting, and we meant it to be,” said Kathy Nonas of the New York City Department of Health. Mission accomplished.
Campaigns like this haven’t hit Toronto yet (our advertising news stories tend to leer more than shock), but do they have to? Fat doesn’t know what city it’s in, after all, and there are no geographical boundaries on repugnance.
• New Ad Aims to Deter New Yorkers From Sugary Drinks [NY1]
Wine for gamers, diet soda most popular among the overweight, Canadians drunker than a decade ago
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• Mike James, the Canadian-born operator of 8-Bit Vintners, knows that Generation Y is more about Half Life than the good life. He’s launched a wine that is best enjoyed with video games. Player 1, as it is called, is a blend of syrah and tempranillo, and should be paired with “Mega Man 2 on the Nintendo Entertainment System or Shadow of the Colossus on PlayStation 2,” says James. [Toronto Star]
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