From Hospital Hospital, UNHALTHY FOOD IS EVERYWHERE AND THAT MAKES IT HARD TO AVOID

Healthy Eating Sounds Deceptlly Simple – Just Eat More Fruits and Vegetables and Avoid Junk Food, Right? However, Healthy Eating really isn’t easy.

New Report Illustrates How Ubiquitousas UNHALTHY FOODS Are, How Aggressivery Thes Are Promoted and How Hard It is to Access Healthy Foods in Places We SPEND OUR TIME.

We are part of A Team of 18 Nutrition and Food Policy Experts From Across Canada Who Looked at Research from the Past Five Years to Expose The Environmental Factors That Influence What People in Canada Buy And Eat. We Explored Many Different Factors, Like the Quality of Food, Food Marketing Practices and What Foods Are Available in Places Like Hospitalists, Schools and Gracery Stores.

The Report is part of an International Network Called Infor (International Network for Food and Obesity/Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDS) Research, Monitoring and Action Support). Our Findings Reinforce That, From Hospital Hospital, Canada’s Food Supply Needs Reform.

What We See Is What We Get

UNHEALTHY FOOD IS EVERYWHERE, AND THAT MAKES IT HARD TO AVOID: What We See We Get. OUR REPORT FOUND THAT MOST PACKAGED FOODS IN GRACERY STORES ARE UNHALTHY. In Fact, Two-Thirds of Them Were High in Salt, Sugar or Satuated Fat. Only 12 Percent Were Low in These Nutrients.

UNHEALTHY FOODS ARE READYY AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE. One Study Showed That Children In Ottawa Had, On Averag, 19 Places to Purchase Foods Within One Kilometer of Their School. In Vancouver, that number was the High at 45.

In-Store Environments Also Thwart Healthy Purchases: 50 Percent of Stores Had “Power Walls” Of Candy, Snacks and Sucary Drinks, Tempting Consumers at the Checkout, While Only Around One In Five Stores Operated to Junk-free Checkout. AND NEARLY ALL HOSPITAL CAFETERIES AND RECREATION CENTER SEVINGING MACHINES Sold Sgary Drinks.

UNHEALTHY FOODS ARE ALSO HEAVILY MARKETED, PARTY TO CHILDREN. One Study Estimated that Children AGED Six to 11 See More Than 4,000 Food Ads On Their Digital Devices Each Year, While Older Children See Twice That Number. Around 90 Percent of the Ads That Children Saw On Their Digital Devices Were Deemed Healthy Based on Their Sugar, Sodium and Saturated Fat Content.

The Closer Look at Marketing In Five Food Product Categories in the INFORMS CANADA REPORT Found that one-third of Products Carred Marketing Targeting to Children.

Example, ALMOST 46 Percent of Breakfast Cereals Used Marketing Techniques That Made Products Look Fun or Cool, or Used Cartoon Characters and Celebrities, to Entice Young Consumers. More than 90 Percent of Products Using these Techniques Were UNHEALTHY. Of 75 Percent of Foods That Had Some Sort of Health Or Nutrition Claim On Their Packaging Highlighting Healthy Attributes of Products, 45 Percent of These Products Were Also High in Salt, Sugar or Saturated Fat.

UNHALTHY FOODS ARE BIG, CHAP AND EASY

Our Report Illustrates How, In Many Ways, The Cards Are Stacked Against Us in Terms of Healthy Eating. The Food Industry, Where Power is Often Concentrated Within the Hands of A Few Large, Multinational CompaniesContinue to Create and Market UNHEALTHY FOODS, Propitate Stated Commitments to Better.

With unnhealthy foods so available and tempting, it’s no surprise that many canadians struggle to eat according to Canada’s Food Guide.

Our UNHEALTHY FOOD Environments Are Making Us Sick and We All Pay The Price. UNHALTHY EATING has be esteised to cost more than $ 15.8 BillionIncluding Direct Health Care Costs of $ 5.9 Billion. With Unnhealthy Eating A Leading Risk for Death and the Second Leading Risk for Disability In Canadathere is a Strong Moral and Economic Imperative for Action to Improve Food Environments.

Creating Helthier Food Environments

It doesn’t have to be this way. In Adding to Providing Benchmarking Date, Our Report Offers A Road Map for Polycymakers, Industry Leaders and Advocates to Collaborate in Creating Healthier, More Equitable Food Environments for All Canadians.

Canada Can Also Draw Inspiration from Global Leaders in Food Policy Like Chile and Mexico. Both country have introduced bold front-off-package Warning labels for foods high in sugar, sodium or saturated fats, combined with restrictions on marketing UNHEALTHY PRODUCTS TO CHILDREN AND TAXES ON UNHALTHY FOODS.

Canada Will Follow Suit with Front-Of-Package Labels in January 2026, But Polycy Change in These Other Areas Isaas.

Taxes On Sugary Drinks Already Exist in More Than 45 Countrieswith the United Kingdom Recently Seeing REDUCTIONS IN SUGAR CONSUMPTION After the sugar drink tax was implemented. Canada, UNFORTUNATELY, IS LAGGING BEHIND, with Newfoundland & Labrador The Only Province with a taxi on sugar drinks.

The Canada’s National School Food Policy ROLLS OUT, there are Opportunities to Protect School Food from Vested Interests. These Actions Need to Be Extended to Other Food Environments – Once Homes, Hospital Hospitals and Grocery Stores.

With the Threat of Tariffs Being Imped by the United States and Potentially Creating Major Challenges for Food affordability, more canadians are Looking for Food Supply That Is Made in Canada. Creating Healther Food Environments and Food Systems Takes A Strong Commitment from Leaders at All Levels (Federal, Provincial, Territorial and Municipal).

Our Benchmarking Report Can Help Create A Nutrition Transition That Nourishes Our Population and Supports Our Healthy Food Producers, Farmers and Fisheries. This Report Makes The Case for Improving Our Food Environments and Shows The Way To A Healthier Future For All Canadians.

This article is republished from The Conversation Under Creative Commons License. Read the Original Article.