Ontario rolls out $10M healthy living plan
Jun. 20, 2006. 05:03 PM
CANADIAN PRESS
Bulging waistlines, a lack of physical activity and poor eating habits are the targets of a new government initiative aimed at convincing Ontario residents to live a healthier lifestyle.
Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson unveiled the province’s $10-million action plan for healthy eating and active living Tuesday at a YMCA family development centre in Toronto.
The plan’s initiatives, the details of which are to be unveiled over the course of the next 12 months, focus on boosting awareness and participation in active lifestyles.
The move is in response to a 2004 report by Dr. Sheela Basrur, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, that called for a broader provincewide effort to tackle obesity.
“The statistics really are quite staggering,” Watson said of childhood obesity rates in particular, which have more than tripled in the last 15 years. More than half of all youth aged 12 to 19 aren’t active enough to receive maximum health benefits, Watson said.
He also renewed his call on Ottawa to revive the ParticipAction program set up in the early 1970s to promote a physically active lifestyle to Canadians.
Watson said he plans to ask federal Health Minister Tony Clement to invest funding in health advocacy programs such as ParticipAction when the pair attend a meeting of sports ministers Wednesday in Ottawa.
Ontario’s plan includes a pilot project that will provide fruits and vegetables grown in the province to children in northern Ontario schools.
Nutrition information will also be made readily available through a new phone and web-based dietitian advisory service, based on a similar program set up in British Colombia.
Families and health care providers will be able to call a toll-free line or submit questions online about their dietary choices.
The Health Promotion Ministry will team up with the Ministry of Education to launch a healthy school recognition program, and will promote resources to community organizations to help create safe routes for children to bike and walk to school.
“The work that we’re involved in is very much a marathon, it’s not a sprint,” Watson said.
“We’re not going to see results overnight, we’re not going to see a dramatic decline in obesity rates, or physical activity increases over the course of the next few months.”
The plan is a way for the government “to act as a catalyst with community groups and not-for-profit groups to work together,” he said.
Watson received feedback from 11 community roundtable groups made up of more than 1,000 individuals and organizations in tabling the plan.
Basrur applauded the government’s efforts, and said it’s critical to tackle the issue of poor health habits and its taxing effects on the health care system.
“Our society is battling twin evils — increasingly sedentary lives, and super-sized portions of high-fat, low-nutrient foods, and the implications for our health care system are truly enormous,” Basrur said.
“To put it bluntly, we cannot afford to continue to live the way that we do.”
Basrur said obesity is contributing to dramatic increases in illnesses including heart disease, stroke, hypertension and that about 30 per cent of all cancers are due to unhealthy eating and lack of exercise.
Obesity costs the province about $1.6 billion a year, according to a 2001 study cited by the government.
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