Health committee  Dave, I agree with you 100%. I'm going to read you every single recommendation from the healthy eating pyramid, and I'm going to do it in less than a minute. On a foundation of daily exercise and weight control, eat whole grain foods at most meals; plant oils at most meals; vege

Health committee  Absolutely. And you asked what is the single most important thing we could do as a federal government in terms of helping with the problem of obesity in Canada. I would restrict all of the recommendations to purely evidence-based recommendations, and I would include the industry

Health committee  I agree with you 100% in terms of the food label. It is confusing. It deals with micronutrients--the vitamins, minerals, etc. What we know now about diet and its relationship with chronic disease is that what matters more than concerning ourselves entirely with ensuring that we

Health committee  I'm going to say something surprising: in this particular issue, I actually think the role is in education. Consumers drive industry, and I don't think industry would have any hesitation making smaller-sized portions if consumers demanded them. One of the ways that consumers ma

Health committee  Very briefly, for the committee's information, drop for drop, orange juice has more calories than Coca-Cola. Simply because it's a juice doesn't necessarily make it lower in calories. Since today's topic is on childhood obesity, I thought it would be important to mention that to

Health committee  Though the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Paediatric Society both recommend that the serving sizes provided to these children be smaller than those in the voluntary program.

Health committee  The answer to the first question is yes, I actually did meet with Health Canada on two occasions. The first occasion was informal at a think tank on obesity in Toronto, and my views were dismissed completely out of hand. The only other time I was given the opportunity to speak d

Health committee  Absolutely. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time in 10 minutes to talk about the actual poor recommendations with regard to health. I talked solely about calories. I would recommend the committee call upon the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit group. T

Health committee  In order for the committee to have more information, in 2001 the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on nutrition published a policy piece on juice in children. They recommend that children between the ages of one to six years old limit fruit juice intake to between 125 and

Health committee  Our program is five and a half months long. In our program a person will receive unlimited access to a dietician, with a minimum of five hours of one-on-one consultation time. They'll receive over 24 hours of group fitness within the confines of our fitness facility, as well as s

Health committee  What we're talking about is the waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio as a better means of deciding the risk of weight, and absolutely--it's been known for a very long time, actually, that it is a better measure of the risk of weight, because body mass index forgets things.

Health committee  Sure. We are co-funded, I suppose, by OHIP. OHIP covers my services as a physician, and the patients who come to see us will pay privately to see the dietician, participate in our on-site fitness facilities, and receive one-on-one personal training as well. In terms of the food

Health committee  Certainly one of the things that have been promoted is the fact that in the pictorial representations of foods, there are pictures of more ethnic foods. As far as my involvement goes, I had none.

Health committee  Good afternoon. I want to thank the committee for inviting me here to speak today. I'm a practising physician. I'm one of only three Canadian physicians certified by the American Board of Bariatric Medicine, the only medical body in North America currently offering certificatio