Thanks very much for the invitation to appear here today, Mr. Chair. I am the chair of the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada. With me is Jean Harvey, the executive director.
For those of you who don't know, very briefly, CDPAC, the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada, is a network of voluntary public and private organizations at the national, provincial, territorial, and local levels. We have over sixty members at the national and provincial levels, and CDPAC is led by a steering committee that consists of ten national organizations and two provincial and territorial alliances.
Childhood obesity represents a significant public health crisis, as the committee knows. In the past 25 years, obesity rates for children have tripled in Canada, and combined overweight and obesity rates have increased by over 70%. This rate for first nations children is two and a half times the national average. Children of parents with low levels of education and income have increased rates of being overweight and obese, as do children in Atlantic Canada. As you know, the health-related costs attributable to obesity are now over $4 billion a year.
It's estimated that today's 9- to 12-year-olds may experience cardiovascular disease by age 30 if current rates of obesity and being overweight continue. In Canada, like the U.S., it is projected that one-third of babies born today will go on to develop type II diabetes and, by extension, cardiovascular disease.
That gives a bit of a context to the problem. What we would like to talk to you about today is what we should really do about it.
We believe childhood is a critical window of opportunity for promoting health and laying a sound foundation for health throughout life. The solutions to childhood obesity must occur on many fronts over a long period of time, by taking a population health approach that involves addressing both the individual as well as the environmental factors that affect health. To that end, CDPAC has six key recommendations for the committee in order to address this issue.
The first one is that the federal government must address childhood obesity through a multi-pronged strategy that coordinates many initiatives across federal departments and facilitates action at the provincial and local levels. We believe the federal government should develop indicators and targets for dealing with this issue; should partner with national non-governmental organizations that are already highly active on this front; and perhaps most importantly, should coordinate the numerous efforts that are now under way in many federal government departments but are not coordinated.
Secondly, we believe it's important to recognize and address the real link between child poverty and obesity. Evidence suggests that child overweight decreases by 3% for each $10,000 increase in family income; that there's an association between neighbourhood income and rates of childhood obesity and overweight in those neighbourhoods; and that despite an all-party resolution to eliminate child poverty in Canada in 1989, one in six Canadian children continues to live in poverty. There is a relationship here, and we have to address it.
The third thing is to expand the role of the federal government in health promotion through an engaging social marketing campaign, as well as by supporting existing campaigns, such as the five- to ten-a-day program, which is a partnership on the part of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Cancer Society. We also think the federal government, through these kinds of health promotion campaigns and social marketing campaigns, should emphasize the important link—and it's an increasingly demonstrated link—between breastfeeding in the first six months and overweight and obesity in childhood.
Fourthly, we believe the federal government really should take seriously addressing the determinants of obesity. We'd like to identify three things in this regard.
Examine the link between the advertising of foods and beverages to children and overweight and obesity by creating an independent panel of experts to review the issue and make policy recommendations. The evidence shows that children under eight are extremely vulnerable to persuasive messages of advertising, and that children up to four cannot distinguish between the commercials and the programming on TV.
Also, content analyses have shown that over 50% of food advertising aimed at children is for energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. This has to change, and we would like to see a panel of experts be convened to address the issue and examine the policy options.
We'd like the federal government to conduct a review of food policy at the federal level, to ensure that Canada has a sustainable food system that ensures that healthy foods are affordable and accessible. A process is currently under way through the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, and we believe this effort by CAPI requires action and support from the committee.
We think the federal government should continue to implement tax incentives and disincentives to promote physical activity and healthy eating. CDPAC supports the recommendations of the expert panel for the children's fitness tax credit to broaden the credit beyond organized sports and encourages the government to continue efforts in this area, particularly with respect to healthy eating.
We believe the GST on foods offers some opportunities for change. We wonder why, in fact, there is GST on one doughnut but there is no GST on six doughnuts or more. The federal finance department says we can't use the GST to influence eating. Our response would be that we already do.
Fifth, we believe that the federal government should increase its investments to increase physical activity in Canada. We just want to pick up on and support a little bit of what was said by the previous members of the panel. Less than half of Canadian children and youth get sufficient exercise to meet current guidelines for healthy growth and development. Therefore, increased physical activity for children and families is important.
We believe that the federal government should implement those elements of the pan-Canadian physical activity strategy that come under federal jurisdiction.
We believe that the federal government should allocate at least 7% of infrastructure funding at the federal level that goes to municipalities for that kind of infrastructure that would increase physical activity. We should note that the U.S. federal government currently allocates 10% of such infrastructure for this purpose.
Likewise, we would like to pick up on the last panel and urge the federal government to broaden the definition of infrastructure under the gas tax transfer to include social infrastructure such as parks, recreation centres, and community centres, and enable municipalities to address those issues that link the built environment with nutrition and physical activity, as we heard from Dr. Veugelers, Dr. Frank, and the FCM.
Sixth and finally, we believe that Canada's public health infrastructure and chronic disease surveillance capacity needs to be improved. Public health has a crucial and critical role in addressing childhood obesity, and Canada's public health infrastructure capacity requires both attention and resources. The federal government should work with the provinces and territories to strengthen our public health capacity, including in the schools.
We also believe the federal government really needs to address and bring dramatic improvement to Canada's health research and surveillance infrastructure. This is an undisputed role for the federal government and one that the federal government has failed to adequately fund. The result is huge gaps in our health surveillance capacity and a relatively poor research data infrastructure compared to other developed countries. For example, Canada does not have a birth cohort or an aging cohort; therefore, we can't examine health behaviours and determinants of health over the life course. We're one of the very few developed countries that doesn't have a birth cohort. The province of Quebec has a birth cohort, but we don't have one at the pan-Canadian level and we wonder why this is the case. This really needs to be addressed, particularly if Canada is going to retain and attract some of the brightest and best minds in health research in the country and in the world.
We'd also like to touch on one of the issues that has been raised at this committee previously that we've read about--that is, issues related to the development of Canada's new food guide. We're very concerned about recent allegations against the new food guide and the processes of its development. We want to go on the record as saying that CDPAC believes the process to revise the food guide to date has been extensive and inclusive and has involved over 7,000 submissions. Our CDPAC members have provided extensive input into the food guide and believe they've been heard as part of this process. CDPAC believes we do need a new food guide in Canada and we need one sooner rather than later, and what we don't need is another long, protracted consultation process to get there.
In conclusion, we think Canada can take pride in our success in reducing tobacco use, which has been the result of committed, collaborative, multi-pronged, and sustainable action. While this effort to reduce tobacco consumption is by no means finished, we really do believe that it offers excellent lessons learned from a policy and programmatic standpoint and that there are many lessons learned here for childhood obesity.
Again, we're really pleased that the committee has taken on this important health issue. We hope that through its leadership Canada can move from having one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the world to being a true leader in improving the health of our children.
Thank you.