Fighting Obesity with Tighter Marketing Rules is Key
One city business not in favour of listing calories on menus
BY PAUL GRIGAITIS
The Daily Graphic
Tuesday April 03, 2007
Nick D’Abramo, manager of Portage la Prairie’s Garden Gate Grill & Bakery, believes offering a well balanced menu would be more effective deterrent to obesity than making nutritional information on menus mandatory.
Staff photo by Paul Grigaitis
Stop the rise in childhood obesity by 2010. That’s the main recommendation of House of Commons’ standing committee on health’s report entitled Healthy Weights for Healthy Kids.
The report also recommends reducing childhood obesity rates from eight per cent to six per cent by 2020 as well as “a mandatory, standardized, simple, front of package labeling requirement on pre-packaged foods.”
Bill Jeffery, national co-ordinator of Centre for Science in the Public Interest, said the report fails to address tight controls on the marketing of unhealthy foods. He worries the childhood obesity issue will fade with a “premature election.”
In a written statement released on March 27, Jeffery said, “The report was silent on one important way to help Canadians consume fewer calories: chain restaurants should be required to list calories on menu boards and additional information on printed menus.”
“That would be a little overkill,” said Nick D’Abramo, manager at Garden Gate Grill & Bakery in Portage la Prairie. “We like to have a well-balanced menu.”
D’Abramo said Garden Gate’s menu is created with health in mind. He said most meals come with a choice of side dishes that includes vegetables or salad rather than just french fries.
“It doesn’t matter how much literature you put in front of the public. It’s the individual (who chooses what they eat),” D’Ambro said.
Carole Williams, a mother of six who was shopping at Portage Consumers Co-operative Ltd.’s grocery store yesterday, said she pays particular attention to nutritional labels.
“I do because I have two children that have a special condition where they can’t eat protein,” said Williams. Two of her children have phenylketonuria. PKU is a term to describe the human body’s inability to metabolize phenylaline, an amino acid often coming from plant proteins. PKU can potentially lead to metal handicap if ignored.
Williams believes the reduction of childhood obesity is important, but says the government can’t be held responsible.
“I think we have to take responsibility for what we do,” she said.
Canada has the fifth highest childhood obesity rate of 34 developed countries. Twenty-six per cent of Canadians aged two to 17 are either overweight or obese. In 1978, that statistic was 15 per cent.
With the potential for a federal election looming, Jeffery hopes the issue of obesity won’t fall by the wayside.
“All parties should reveal in their policy platforms how they aim to implement -- or improve upon -- the recommendations of today’s Health Committee report,” he said.
“Federal and provincial governments should take heed that, without legislative reform and sensibly-funded prevention programs, this generation of children may be the first to live shorter life spans than their parents.”
Centre for Science in the Public Interest is an independent health advocacy group. It has offices in both Ottawa and Washington, D.C., and publishes a newsletter titled Nutrition Action Healthletter.
Obesity in Canada