• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Most Canadians Aren't Eating a Balanced Diet - Too Much Fat, Too Few Veg

Posted on: Thursday, 6 July 2006, 21:00 CDT

By HELEN BRANSWELL

TORONTO (CP) - The amount of fat most Canadians eat on a daily basis has declined over the past 30 years, but about one in five still get too many of their calories from fat, the first national snapshot of Canadian dietary habits in nearly 35 years reveals.

Preliminary data from the study, conducted in 2004 and released Thursday, also show many Canadians - especially children - aren't eating nearly enough vegetables and fruit and also aren't meeting the daily recommended intake for calcium-rich dairy products.

"We certainly see that we have room for lots of improvement in our food intake," Rena Mendelson, a nutrition professor at Toronto's Ryerson University, said after studying the first, eagerly awaited data from Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey on nutrition.

"The dietary results explain why we're seeing I think the kinds of obesity issues that we're seeing."

The first analysis of what is expected to be a rich vein of national nutritional data shows that over a quarter of Canadian adults in their 30s and 40s may be getting more than 35 per cent of their daily caloric intake from fat. The figure is considered a threshold beyond which diet-induced health problems are likely to develop.

On average, Canadians were getting about 31 per cent of their daily calories from fats. On first blush, that looks high. But it's actually a drop from the last time a national nutritional sounding was taken, in the early 1970s.

"I'm happy that the fat level has come down . . . from what it was in the late '60s and early '70s," said Len Piche, a profession of nutritional sciences at the University of Western Ontario's Brescia University College.

Piche also noted that all fats aren't created equal - or equally bad. So until analysts at Statistics Canada break down which kinds of fat are making up that 31 per cent, it's hard to know what to make of the figure. He pointed out that people who follow the so-called Mediterranean diet - which is known to be linked to a lower risk of heart disease - typically get about 40 per cent of daily calories from healthy fats such as olive oil.

Still, others said it's clear there's progress to be made in reducing the fat intake in the average Canadian diet.

"It's better than it was the last time we had this national data, but we still have some work to do," said Helen Haresign, vice-president of development for Dietitians of Canada.

Didier Garriguet, the author of this report, said detailed analysis of the types of fats in the average Canadian diet will be broken out in later publications. The first of these reports is expected before the end of the year.

In fact, nutrition experts who pounced on the new national data said that while the report was welcome, the kind of detail that will really shape public policy and dietary recommendations is yet to come.

Still, most said a couple of things are clear from this initial release. The Canadian diet is still lacking in fruits, vegetables and dairy products. And that holds true for both children and adults.

Garriguet said 37 per cent of children aged four to nine don't consume the minimum recommendation of two servings of milk products (milk, cheese or yogurt) a day. Among 10-to-16 year olds, 61 per cent of boys and 83 per cent of girls don't consume the three servings recommended for that age group.

"About 40 per cent of the calcium in their bones . . . gets deposited during that period. And they're not doing so well. So we're going to have to do something about that," Piche said.

On the fruit and veg front, seven of 10 children and about half of adults don't eat five a day - and five is the minimum recommended in the Canada Food Guide.

"The average is on the threshold - around 4.8, 5.2 depending on age and sex. But if the average is five, that means a lot of people are below it," Garriguet said.

"It was supposed to be between five and 10."

The survey was an enormous undertaking. Statistics Canada interviewed 35,000 Canadians, asking them to recount in minute detail everything they ate in the 24 hours before the interview took place.

A report of a hamburger, for instance, led to myriad follow up questions. Was it prepared outside the home? At home? How big was it? Was there a bun? What type of bun? What condiments were added?

Reported food items had to be then analyzed to determine, among other things, how much fat they would typically contain.

To try to ensure that the finding represented what the average Canadian ate on an average day, 10,000 of the interviewees were called a few days later and asked to go through the entire process again.

"We want to have a picture of what you eat usually," Garriguet said.

Among other findings:

Many people appear to be getting more calories from snacks than they do from breakfast. Piche noted that snacks could be apples and carrots, but Mendelson saw that as a sign Canadians are likely consuming too many fatty and sugary treats.

A quarter of Canadians reported they'd eaten in a fast-food restaurant the day before their interview, with men aged 19 to 30 the most likely fast food eaters.

There was regional variation in dietary intake, with Quebecers less likely to eat in fast-food restaurants and more likely to eat recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables. Atlantic Canadians were big snackers.

The survey also found an interesting twist on the income and food myth. While people on low incomes are often portrayed as eating fattier diets - relying on the inexpensive foods of fast-food restaurants - in fact the amount of fat in a diet rose with income.

"People in the highest income category basically have more of everything. They have more fruit and vegetables, they have more meat, but they also have more fat," Garriguet said.

The diets of people with lower incomes were short on expensive fruits and vegetables, he noted. But "on the other hand, they do better on fat intakes."

Source: Canadian Press

More News in this Category