Obesity in Newfoundland
Kenny Clarke
The Gulf News
Did you know that obesity is described as an “epidemic” by the World Health Organization due to its increasing world-wide prevalence over a relatively short time period? Did you know that Canadian Health Care has to spend between 1.8 and 3.5 billion dollars each on treatment for people with obesity related illnesses, like diabetes, heart disease, etc.?
Maybe that gives us a little insight on why our taxes are so high. Just recently CBC aired a number of news briefs outlining the latest statistics on Canada's forever growing waistline. What those statistics showed was astonishing. They found that Newfoundland had the highest rate of obesity in all of Canada. In Newfoundland an average of one in every three people is over weight and 17 per cent or more people are obese. That is a fair amount more than the national average, where one in five people is overweight and 12per cent of the population is obese. They also found that people living in cities or more likely to be skinny compared to small rural areas, like many of our fine towns in Newfoundland. It is not know for sure what the reason for this is but some professionals believe it is related to the fact that people in urban centers are more active, they walk further each day, the use their cars less, and the more of frequent gym goers than people in rural areas.
I personally believe that dietary habits have much to do with Newfoundland’s higher than average obesity rate. I think the traditional Newfoundland diet, which is very tasty, is also very rich in calories. When my Grandfather ate his meat and potatoes everyday he also worked 10-12 hours of manual labour everyday; he was able to burn the energy from the food off. Today some people still continue to eat a diet that mainly revolves around that staple food but the physical activity is much less. More of us have jobs behind a desk or in front of a computer now. I guess it also doesn't help that everywhere you look there is a fast food restaurant or a convience store tempting you to come in a try there new product.
The health implications that come with a society of people well overweight are truly great. As a collective whole we are less productive at work, sick more often than not, and a huge drain on the economy in terms of money spent on health care.As times change I think we need to as well. As our lives is less physically demanding we must tailor our lives towards that. It is important to stay active and eat well. If this doesn’t happen then society as a whole will suffer.
Obesity in Newfoundland