Status of Women Committee on Feb. 26th, 2014

[Jadine Cairns]

It is frightening, and thank you for asking that excellent question. It's something like what I mentioned. As a dietitian in the eating disorder area, I'm always having to say, “This message is not for you”. It's a message that we put out for the general public, and I'm even skeptical about how we portray that message, as I mentioned, “fat is always bad”, no matter what, and “exercise is always good”. Those messages need to be tailored somewhat, I believe.

In terms of the school curriculum, we certainly see this and hear it. I think it's a question of the education of our coaches, of our educators. It's the whole global campaign that we need to be cognizant of.

One of my recommendations would be to look at a coordinated way to get the messages out. Health Canada does a wonderful job: “These are the top priorities”—for battling, perhaps, obesity or for cardiac issues. It's all very specific. Many people perhaps suffer from cardiac issues, and I know that some previous witnesses have said that there is an obesity epidemic. Is there really, or are we just fearful of it? We need to look at the messages to know how they might be taken in the wrong way. Of course, the eating disorder is the one that's going to take it to the extreme, but we want to always make sure that we not paint it with a broad brush, as I mentioned before, but always be aware of what our messages might translate into.

It starts with the curriculum.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

I'm sure you could expand the point to everyday consumers as well and to the misinformation so many of us have. When people talk about healthy eating.... Even in food labelling, for example, there is talk of putting calorie counts on food labels, or making them more prominent. They are already there for prepared and processed food.

Would you say it would be a dangerous thing to do, to feature calorie counts on food labels?

[Jadine Cairns]

It's a huge danger.

I was really happy 20 years ago when I was doing this spiel that people did not have access to the calories and the grams of fat and of carb and of sugar. The more that information is out there and easily accessible, the more our patient population uses it, and because the numbers have this power—the eating disorder drives them—it's a very dangerous thing.

In this case, a little information is dangerous. It's not a good thing.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

It's counterintuitive, isn't it?

[Jadine Cairns]

Absolutely. I was trained as a dietitian to think that we need to get information to the public, let them know, let them make the choices. Maybe we don't, because that information can be used in very dangerous ways.

To give you an example, there is a very popular app for iPhone called MyFitnessPal. What a great idea: help people control their calories, help people control their weight and get them healthy. Health is now a synonym for being perhaps skinny, or for something like losing weight.

I have so many young women in the college age group who are addicted to the Fitness Pal numbers. They have to get those numbers into the app. It's an easy way of making them focus on and obsess about the calories in their food. I'm trying to let them back away from this. It's something that's dangerous.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

We must now end the public meeting, since we have to plan the rest of our study in camera before we go to the House to vote. That's part of our job.

I would like to thank our witnesses for coming to share their experiences and expertise with us. This will really help us with our study.

[Proceedings continue in camera]