Why is Canada Suffering from Ever-increasing Obesity?

Where are you?  It might sound a little bit Captain Obvious. All of us stay at home in order to minimize close contact with our friends. In the last 30 days, we showed our strength, resilience, and creativity. C.L.I.C. thinks that the more we practice physical distancing, the more social connections we need.  💗

We may be more concerned about the health issues in this period than before. Now Manami Nagasaki shares with us her argumentative essays about Obesity. 

 

   Why is Canada Suffering from Ever-increasing Obesity? 

-Canadian People and Society Need to Shift their Diet Value from Convenience to Quality-

By: Manami Nagasaki

In Canada, same to other many countries, industrial progress is obviously one of the most evolved and effective contributors of uncountable benefits to our lives over decades. This exponential progress allows people in Canada to have access to an abundant variety of foods and convenience, however, I point out that it is accompanied with a controversial matter; this innovative advance has gradually threatened the health status of the population. In fact, obesity growth is a critical issue which the country has been currently suffering from. A report shows the obesity rates among Canadian adults have tripled since 1978, and the ones among the young generation have multiplied three times for 30 years. I contend that this obesity issue is associated with the contemporary food environment encouraged by the industrial growth and lack of social consciousness.                            

   

   Generally speaking, obesity is caused by a complex combination of several factors including physical inactivity, genetic and even mental unbalance. However, diet habits are predictably defined as predominant controllers of weight gain, because diet habits are directly connected to calories and weight control. Moreover, a scientific researcher in California demonstrated that unhealthy diet habits produce not only weight gain, but also laziness preventing us from physical activities.

   In addition to the general factor of obesity, we can see a dramatic shift of diet habits from indigenous diets through Canadian history. Although being characterized as a vast expanse of indigenous land, Canada has been gradually civilized in the metropolitan areas. Nowadays, many people in Canada are relying on convenience foods, which have emerged and swept across the country due to industrial prosperity, to save their money and time in a modern lifestyle. Indeed, a report mentions that the number of fast-food outlets in the U.S. has surged by over 750% from 1970 to 2004, and Canada has an analogous record. To make matter worse, Canadians allot 30% of their food budget for “outside” food, and fast-food sales in Canada have multiplied only since 1990.

   Their instant intake of “outside” food, which causes adverse effects on health such as artificial ingredients or excessive portions of condiments, generates the obesity growth in the country. In fact, 46.8% of total calories consumed by Canadian people aged over 19 are from ultra-processed food, which conditions individuals towards the prevalence of obesity (31.4 %), and 23.4 % of total sugar intake among children arises from the sweetened beverage.

   It follows that the diet trends in Canada, which have been shifting along with the industrial progress, have intensively driven people to obesity during a short period. The diet, which is traditionally identified as a fundamental resource of life, is ridiculously criticized as being the trigger of health deterioration. The Canadian obesity population is bloating chronically and simultaneously with the transition of their diet habits. Sure, I acknowledge that we deserve to exploit the convenience and the productivity brought by food industrial development. Our lifestyle is shifting, and our diet routine is also synchronously altering. But, I affirm that there is no logical reason to undergo the vital risks to ourselves by adapting inadequate diet trends. Perpetual integration of this harmful diet style into our convention will ultimately afflict the following generations with the vital health crisis in the country because the prevalence of obesity spoils the physical and mental health status of the country and it could also economically disrupt the medical and social system. How can we prevent ourselves from this anticipated disaster?

  

   In daily life, we are likely to be easily affected by our surroundings or social trends. Our lifestyle, including food choices, routines, and values, are generally established and customized by our neighborhood, and we become insensitive to our recognition capacity for the authentic value in exchange for complying with social trends.

  The problem is the Canadian society and markets are oblivious to their lack of responsibility for the obesity issue. For instance, plenty of fast food outlets are located around schools. This is one of the examples of social inconsideration for circumstances surrounding children and adolescents because the obesity growth among them is indeed related to the food environment around their schools. More precisely, a report regarding public health nutrition reveals that, in Quebec City, fast food outlets are often located at a distance of approximately 10 minutes from their schools. Consequently, the students tend to consume insufficient daily portions of fruits and vegetables compared to students in Montreal, where schools have geographically less access to fast food outlets.

   As an immigrant, I’m convinced that neighbor environments define our diet habits. My eating habit has diverged from the traditional Japanese one. It has been shifted for four years because I gradually needed to adapt to the American (or North American) food style to establish my life in Canada. This shift isn’t paced by the countries we choose to live in only, but also by the sub-divisions within the country: the provinces, the cities, and the neighborhoods. Every time I move, even in small towns, I seek convenient food shops or coffee shops just around my house or around the nearest station I use every day. Then, I frequent there.

   Here is another important premise concerning the lack of social responsibility; Markets mislead us to profit their business strategy. In fact, sweetened beverage commerce claim that the intake of their beverages won’t affect health if enough exercise is accomplished. How many people have ever consumed energy or supplement drinks for their physical activities? These “magical” drinks may encourage our physical activities by supplying substances we lost due to sweating; the truth is they are actually over-saturated with lots of sugar, and sugar calories cause a weight gain independently on the number of physical activities.

  

As we’ve seen, the ever-increasing obesity in Canada is predominantly caused by unhealthy diet trends, which was ironically encouraged by industrial development, but the problem is also that the society and markets are eager to promote unhealthy diet to Canadians. In the wake of these explicit backgrounds about obesity growth in Canada, I claim that Canadian people and society should shift their diet value from convenience and productivity to quality and responsible choices.

    I insist that this shift will shed light on this critical health issue as a radical solution and become a springboard to Canadian health improvement. As I argued, the obesity growth in Canada is strongly connected with diet habits evoked by consumers’ food environment through industrial development and a social unconsciousness including markets’ schemes. Thus, it is important that not only individuals but also the whole society should take responsibility and assert their collective and impelling capacity to achieve the true well-being of the population.  

   I also reason that this shift inheres a high possibility for the achievement of beneficial change by considering Canadian national characteristics. Since Canada is an international and multicultural country, I assume that people and society are likely to be open-minded and flexible to switch their trends and conceptions. As Asian restaurants are seen more and more in cities, as international and cultural foods become available in Canadian groceries, we can conspicuously recognize a quick transition of dietary environment and a high potential for the acceptance of diversity in this country. Indeed, the emergence of organic stores and the expansion of natural food selection are gradually observed and seemed to sensitize some people and drive them to a more valuable direction for their food health. As referring to my experience, a discovery of natural food shop in my neighborhood one year ago brought me a new concept for a healthy diet life and my food selection has virtually begun to pivot in a positive manner.

   Over decades, people and society have been exploring further evolution for the pursuit of a more convenient and productive life. I assume that industrial development can be a part of the processes of Canada as a member of the First World. But paradoxically, the health of Canadian people is increasingly deteriorated and their quality of life getting worse along with the development. I believe that our lives should not be victims of distorted consequences of the development. As well as uplift of individual consciousness, the Canadian society, including industries and public establishments, is now required to alter the direction of the development to recover the public health.

Note: The essay is written last winter when Manami took the English Writing course in UQAM.

References

chai, C. (2014, April 8). Which is to blame for obesity – unhealthy eating or lack of exercise? Retrieved from Global News: https://globalnews.ca/news/1257320/which-is-to-blame-for-obesity-unhealthy-eating-or-lack-or-exercise/

Cutumisu, N., Traoré, I., Paquette, M. C., Cazale, L., Camirand, H., Lalonde, B., & Robitaille, E. (2017). Association between junk food consumption and fast-food outlet access near school among Quebec secondary-school children: findings from the Quebec Health Survey of High School Students (QHSHSS) 2010–11. Public health nutrition, 20(5), 927-937.

Malhotra, A., Noakes, T., & Phinney, S. (2015). It is time to bust the myth of physical inactivity and obesity: you cannot outrun a bad diet.

Nardocci M, Polsky J, Moubarac JC. How ultra-processed foods affect health in Canada. Report prepared for Heart and Stroke. Montréal: TRANSNUT, Department of Nutrition, University of Montreal; June 2019.

Navaneelan, T., & Janz, T. (2012). Health at a Glance. Suicide rates: An overview: Statistics Canada Ottawa.Canada, G. o. (2019, January 22). Childhood obesity. Retrieved from Statistics Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/childhood-obesity/childhood-obesity.html

Government of Canada. (2019, January 22). Childhood obesity. Retrieved from Statistics Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/childhood-obesity/childhood-obesity.html

Hollands, S. (2012). Association between the Fast-Food Environment and Obesity in Canada: A Cross-sectional Analysis.