New Food Collaborative in Ontario

 

The Ontario Collaborative Group on Healthy Eating and Physical Activity (OCGHEPA), is a provincial not for profit that is looking at the determinants of good health, which includes eating well, physical activities, and includes access to food.

Its mission is to improve the health of all Ontarians by advancing healthy eating and active living initiatives through strategic partnerships, knowledge exchange and collective action.  Our vision for 2015 is an Ontario that supports healthy eating and active living for all.

The Collaborative have been working together for the past few months and will start to formulate the organization’s principles.  They have identified the priority areas and will be working with stakeholders in the near future.

Visit the OCGHEPA is working on the following priority areas:

• Making Ontario the healthiest province
• Developing an Ontario food and nutrition strategy
• Improving access for all Ontarians to healthy food and physical activity opportunities
• Using the 2015 Pan Am games as an opportunity to promote healthy eating and active living
• Childhood obesity
• Food security
• Healthy eating/physical activity in school
• Built environment

Obesity costs billion$

The benefits of growing  or buying local food are numerous, including supporting local farmers, the increased nutrient value of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and leads to a dietary shift that can lead to healthy living an a daily basis.

This is an increasingly important consideration since a new research study called Obesity in Canada, estimates that about 25% of adults and children aged 6 – 17 over 6% are obese.  Report highlights:

Approximately one in four Canadian adults are obese, according to measured height and weight data from 2007-2009. Of children and youth aged six to 17, 8.6% are obese.

Between 1981 and 2007/09, obesity rates roughly doubled among both males and females in most age groups in the adult and youth categories.

The economic costs of obesity are estimated at $4.6 billion in 2008, up about 19% from $3.9 billion in 2000, based on costs associated with the eight chronic diseases most consistently linked to obesity. Estimates rise to close to $7.1 billion when based on the costs associated with 18 chronic diseases linked to obesity. Factors that influence obesity include:

• physical activity;
• diet;
• socioeconomic status;
•  ethnicity;
•  immigration; and
•  environmental factors.

Strategies to combat obesity and address the environments that encourage obesity fall into three main categories: health services and clinical interventions that target individuals; community-level interventions that directly influence individual and group behaviours; public policies that target broad social or environmental determinants.