We'd like to focus our suggestions on the issue that is of growing concern in Canada and elsewhere and that you've been hearing about at the committee, the increasing levels of unhealthy weights among both adults and children.
As you've heard from others, currently a quarter of 2- to 17-year-olds in Canada are overweight or obese, and it is estimated that 70% of 35- to 44-year-olds will be in this category in 20 years if nothing changes.
Although the problem is complex, there is a fairly broad consensus on some of the actions necessary to curb it. To make progress on this issue, we need to start shifting the physical and socio-cultural environments that shape our consumption and activity patterns. In our experience, this requires a combination of carrots and sticks—regulation and taxation as well as health-promoting actions that focus on access, education, and skills development required for Canadians to engage in healthy living.
A priority is to ensure Canadians have nutritious food and the ability to make good choices about what we eat. Children in particular need healthy food in order to achieve optimal development, to succeed in school, and to develop lifelong healthy habits.
The federal government can play an important role by restricting the marketing to children of unhealthy foods and beverages. We would suggest to include banning television advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages during programs viewed by children age 12 and under; banning or restricting unhealthy food at grocery store checkouts; banning the use of celebrities or cartoon characters to promote products to children; and banning sponsorship or marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages within school settings. If this can be achieved in cooperation with industry, that would be great. But if not, we would recommend a strong regulatory regime be introduced at the federal level, much as was done for tobacco.
Information is key to decision-making, and in order to make healthy choices, consumers need to have clear information about what they are purchasing. We recommend strengthening the requirements for clear and consistent front-of-package labelling of the contents of packaged foods, providing appropriate information on sugar, fat, and sodium, and clearly relating these to servings. As well, we need to gradually reduce the acceptable levels of sodium and sugars in many of our foods.
While we are pleased that some industry groups have made a start in this direction, there is still much work to be done.
We have been particularly concerned with the overconsumption of sugar-sweetened beverages among young people. One of BCHLA's initiatives, Sip Smart! BC, enabled more than 6,000 school children in British Columbia to learn about the sugar content of what they were drinking and encouraged them and their families to make more appropriate choices. This program is now being expanded to other jurisdictions across Canada with the support of the Childhood Obesity Foundation, CDPAC, and a CLASP grant.
Education is important, but in this case easy access is also a concern. When sugary drinks are often the cheapest and most convenient option, it is no wonder they have been consistently linked with overweight children. Taxation is never a popular choice, but with respect to the challenges we are facing with childhood obesity, we believe an increased tax applied to non-nutrient foods and beverages could limit overconsumption in the same way that tobacco taxes have reduced smoking rates.
Of course, physical activity must play a larger part in the lives of our children and adults. Through the tax system and in other ways, governments can play an important role in supporting measures to promote and facilitate families of all income levels to be able to engage in physical activity. In particular, we suggest the federal government should support other levels of government in ensuring that there is the appropriate physical recreational infrastructure to meet the physical activity needs into the next generation.
Finally, we would like to congratulate Health Canada on its recent health promotion campaign to raise awareness of the links between sugar-sweetened beverages and childhood obesity. But much more needs to be done. We urge the federal government to take a leadership role in working with the provinces and territories, the private sector, and the not-for-profit sector in a joined-up approach to promote, support, and inspire the next generation of Canadians to live not only long lives but healthy ones as well.