By Melanie Ferris

Epidemic is a word that gets my attention. So when Dr. Marco Di Buono, Director of Research at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, visited my gym yesterday to tell the media that obesity amongst children is an “epidemic,” I started to worry.

From left: Dr. Sean Wharton (obesity expert) and Dr. Marco di Buono (director of research at the foundation)

More than worried, I want us to do something about it. That’s why I’m glad to be working with Health Nexus—we’ve partnered with the foundation to help launch its new Spark Together for Healthy Kids campaign.

The campaign seems to be inspired by the foundation’s recent research on the health of Ontario’s children—the findings may not surprise you. Simply put, our children are unhealthy. Most children in Ontario are overweight or obese. Scary, isn’t it? Most of our children are not getting their recommended daily intake of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grain foods. When I say “most” children, note that the foundation’s research doesn’t seem to take any special look at Aboriginal children.

The problems and roots of overweight and obese children are complex. This is true for mainstream society, but the situation becomes even more complex for Aboriginal communities. We need to all agree on that. Some people place blame on parents if children are overweight or obese, but more than half (58%) of the people in Ontario think that we need to work together with organizations so that everyone has a role in solving this “societal” situation.

Why?

People in Ontario, and across the province, cannot afford to provide their children with fresh or healthy food. Food prices vary and are inconsistent amongst the province. The foundation shared a list of costs amongst different regions. Here are some examples:

The cost of 1 kg of chicken legs in:
 Ottawa: $6.59
 London: $4.39
 Toronto: $3.95
 Sudbury: $7.25

The cost 6 oranges in:
 Ottawa: $1.86
 London: $4.99
 Toronto: $2.46
 Sudbury: $4.81

The cost of 4 litres of milk in:
 Ottawa: $5.77
 London: $4.87
 Toronto: $5.99
 Sudbury: $5.17

The foundation did not share any prices for food in any reserve or truly northern or remote communities. These communities do not have access to many healthy foods that are fresh and/or affordable. The cheapest foods in these (and in many) communities include processed foods that have little nutritional value.

“How is it possible to live a healthy life, if you don’t have access or can’t afford basic, healthy food?” asks Dr. Sean Wharton, the foundation’s obesity expert.

One woman I met from the Heart and Stroke Foundation said to me (and I paraphrase here), “If someone has a family of four and they can choose to buy fresh foods for 2 days and go hungry for the rest or eat pasta and potatoes for a week, what do you think they are going to choose?”

The foundation is aiming to do is to get parents and governments realizing that the amount of calories (energy) that is going into our children’s bodies is not being used up. Children are not being active enough, and they’re eating too much junk. This is especially true during the winter, when children’s amount of time being active reduces dramatically.

Yikes!

This is a complex situation. It is even more complex when you start thinking of how to address these issues in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities. Although I speak as a First Nations woman, I feel that I can safely say that all Aboriginal people have not had problems of obesity, and related chronic diseases, until recently because we were busy being active just so we could survive. We had to catch our fish and pick our berries—there was no store where we could buy these foods!

Now that we’re living in a Westernized world, many of us depend on the modern conveniences. But these conveniences are not so helpful when you’re living in an isolated community where they only sell milk for $12 for 4 litres. It makes much more sense to buy a bottle of soda, which is much cheaper (and arguably, yummier).

And when you’re getting your food on a reserve or in an isolated community, you’re probably not thinking about riding your bike or enjoying a leisurely stroll to the store with your little ones. Most of the reserves I’ve been to are spread out along a long gravel road, with no central community gathering space and no walking or biking path. Many reserves don’t have street lamps to make it safe to walk at night. Many reserves also have problems with wild dogs… all these factors make a trip to the store a safety issue, something that is better off done through using your motorized vehicle than your own two legs!

Right now Health Nexus is working to develop training and a toolkit for service providers across Ontario that focuses on some of these issues. The training and toolkit will aim to give service providers some ideas of how they can help Aboriginal people to stay healthy. One thing we’re doing is gathering information about what programs are working in different communities.

Thanks to those service providers who have been sharing ideas to help us get a sense of what issues their clients are dealing with. Service providers have been filling out our survey, and you can too if you click here.

So far, some of the interesting statistics are as follows:

• 70% of respondents feel that their community doesn’t have enough resources for Aboriginal families, even though 82% of respondents refer their clients to other programs to help them achieve better health
• 70% of respondents say that the biggest issue affecting their Aboriginal clients is “not enough money/poverty”
• 65% of respondents say that the next biggest issue affecting their Aboriginal client is diabetes

We’ll continue to work on our Let’s Be Healthy Together project, and hope that our work can help the Heart and Stroke Foundation to think a little bit more about trying to represent Aboriginal people in their own important research. It’s frustrating to learn about lots of exciting work that is done but doesn’t reflect your own community!

By signing onto the "Spark" initiative, Dr. Wharton is promising a better tomorrow for "our" children

One of the ways the foundation is trying to make a chance is by setting up its “Spark Community Advocacy Fund.” This is where organizations can apply to get anywhere from $5000 to $25,000 for projects that help to improve child wellness.

The foundation gave $15,000 in funding for a cultural initiative, saying that they recognize that “cultural barriers make it difficult for some mainstream health messages to reach children in diverse communities, the Faith Health Initiative, in Toronto is enlisting church pastors and members to act as advocates to increase awareness of the importance of physical activity among children.”

Since many Aboriginal people practice their faith/spirituality through friendship and other community centres, I encourage Aboriginal organizations to apply for these funds. The next deadline for applications is November 1. For more information, click here.

It’s great if this Spark campaign is going to get more people thinking about obesity as an epidemic, but let’s work to ensure that First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people are thinking about it and have the tools and resources to actually DO something about it.

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Ironically, all of these people were at my gym, but none of them were there to get their physical activity for the day!