{"id":77705,"date":"2016-06-23T08:28:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T12:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=77705"},"modified":"2016-06-23T08:28:58","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T12:28:58","slug":"canadas-food-environment-unhealthy-swamps-mirages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/06\/23\/canadas-food-environment-unhealthy-swamps-mirages\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s food environment unhealthy with \u2018swamps\u2019 and \u2018mirages\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Pixabay<\/a>
(Pixabay photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2013 Canada\u2019s food landscape is becoming awash in swamps, or areas where there\u2019s an overabundance of unhealthy items, says a University of Saskatchewan professor.<\/p>\n

And no matter where in Canada you live or what your income level is, accessing healthy food is not always easy, says Rachel Engler-Stringer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about your day-to-day movement throughout the neighbourhood or the city or wherever you go. How many times do you encounter chocolate bars, potato chips, pop?\u201d Engler-Stringer says from Saskatoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at the point now where you can\u2019t even go to a car mechanic without there being chocolate bars on the counter. They\u2019re literally absolutely everywhere and our grocery stores are heavily dominated by foods that are not considered healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes an even bigger issue when we\u2019re talking about lower-income households because the foods that are the cheapest sort of bang for your buck when it comes to calories and feeling full and satiated are those unhealthy foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

A discussion of unhealthy food landscapes in this country is explored in a new series of papers entitled \u201cRetail Food Environments in Canada: Maximizing the Impact of Research, Policy and Practice,\u201d recently released in a supplement of the Canadian Journal of Public Health.<\/p>\n

Engler-Stringer, the supplement\u2019s co-ordinator and an author on four included papers, notes much has been written about food deserts, or areas lacking easy access to a large grocery store such as in rural and indigenous communities.<\/p>\n

Food swamps are defined as marginalized neighbourhoods dominated by fast-food outlets and\/or convenience stores with low-nutrition food. Food mirages, an even newer term, are neighbourhoods where nutritious foods are available but not affordable.<\/p>\n

This frequently occurs in urban areas undergoing gentrification.<\/p>\n

People of higher socioeconomic status move into lower-income neighbourhoods. The businesses they attract may sell healthy foods, but they\u2019re at a higher price point and not affordable to the original inhabitants of those neighbourhoods, Engler-Stringer explains.<\/p>\n

Lower-income areas also tend to have a higher concentration of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores. Many people in these areas don\u2019t own a vehicle or can\u2019t afford to use one very often. After housing, there\u2019s little left for food, even less if a taxi is needed. It\u2019s far easier to carry home a bag of potato chips on the bus than a bag of potatoes.<\/p>\n

People are born with an innate taste for sugar and fats and develop a taste for salt as youngsters, so items like potato chips cater to that, Engler-Stringer says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they\u2019re deep-fried they have more calories, in some cases (they\u2019re) more filling and you feel satisfied from eating those, and yet they\u2019re not really what we should be eating and you’re also more likely to find those on sale,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re put in a difficult situation that is a whole heck of a lot worse when you’re dealing with low income.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, checkout aisles and grocery shelves typically place candy and sweeter cereals at kids\u2019 eye level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all these small things that individually don\u2019t mean very much, but when you add them all together they make for a very unhealthy food environment broadly. And then we blame individuals for not being able to resist and yet we\u2019re constantly surrounded by it and it triggers all our innate needs when it comes to food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, it surprises me completely that people think it\u2019s an individual problem. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s a problem of an environment that is really not conducive to making a healthy choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another study in the supplement looked at the availability of fast-food restaurants in relation to the development of diabetes, which places a heavy burden on the health-care system. It found Canadians under 65 have a greater risk of developing diabetes if they live near three or more fast-food restaurants without healthy dining options.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s this lack of balance. It\u2019s where you had a lot of fast food but few other options,\u201d says lead author Jane Polsky, a University of Toronto PhD candidate at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose (areas) had the worst profile for diabetes risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many public health units and municipal governments have discussed restricting fast-food restaurants and convenience stores near schools, says Polsky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat our study adds or suggests is that policies that achieve a better balance of restaurant types with more alternatives to fast food might actually go a long way towards reducing, at least in this case, the risk of diabetes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Canada\u2019s food landscape is becoming awash in swamps, or areas where there\u2019s an overabundance of unhealthy items, says …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":77706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[11359,11360],"class_list":["post-77705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-food","tag-canada-food","tag-canada-food-environment","mauthors-lois-abraham","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}