Updated: Tue Jun. 21 2011 09:46:55
CTV.ca News Staff
Statistics Canada says Canadians are eating fewer fruits and vegetables for the first time in a decade, according to its latest analysis of the country's state of health.
In its latest Canadian Community Health Survey, Statistics Canada reports that just 43 per cent of Canadians aged 12 and older ate fruit or vegetables more than five times a day in 2010. That's down from 46 per cent the year before.
Broken down by gender, the survey found that half of all women reached for fruit and vegetables five or more times daily compared with just 36 per cent of men.
The data is based on an ongoing survey of 65,000 Canadians on a gamut of more than 30 health indicators.
Other highlights from the latest edition of the annual snapshot include:
Six in 10 Canadians reported their own state of health as very good or excellent. Canadians nevertheless reported a slight increase in their daily stress levels, with 24 per cent describing most days are either extremely or quite stressful. That was up two percentage points from 2008. The number of Canadians whose height and weight categorizes them as obese under Health Canada guidelines was virtually unchanged from the year before, at approximately 4.5 million or 18 per cent of the overall population. For the first time, Statistics Canada found the same number of women as men reporting they had been diagnosed with hypertension. Overall, nearly 1 in 6 Canadians said they had high blood pressure. One-in-eight of the 15 per cent of Canadians who said they had no regular medical doctor, reported easy access to alternative medical care such as a walk-in clinic. Among the 21 per cent, or 6 million Canadians who said they were either daily or occasional smokers, more men (24 per cent) lit up in 2010 than in the year before. The number of women smokers fell two percentage points, however, to 17 per cent in 2010.
In its bulletin announcing the results online Tuesday, Statistics Canada suggested the trend among women may continue, and indeed spread to men in the coming years as well.
"Since people typically begin smoking during their teenage years, the percentage who had not started smoking by age 20 is an indicator of future smoking rates," StatsCan wrote, noting that 57 per cent of women between the ages of 20 and 24 said they had never smoked.
That's up from 41 per cent in 2003.
And the same holds for young men too, 45 per cent of whom reported no prior experience with tobacco.
That also represents "a considerable increase" from the 37 per cent of young men who said the same in 2003.
Although the survey captures data from Canadians in every province and territory, Residents of Indian reserves, health care institutions, some remote areas and full-time members of the Canadian Forces are not included.
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Two things have happened.
First, we paved over farmland to build houses and big box stores and now we have to import all our food. When we put local farmers out of business and decide to rely on foreign food supplies, we doom ourselves to live with the vagaries of the open market and now people simply cannot afford to eat sensibly. I point to the Pickering Airport boondoggle as a prime example; paving over 7200 hectares of prime farmland to build an airport we don't need. The second thing that happened is that we allowed family run companies like Loblaws and Sobeys to put a stranglehold on the supply of food into this country. Both of these privately owned companies make record profits every quarter and collect a kings ransom off of charging a nickel plus HST for a grocery bag. Where are the protests over this? Why isn't the federal Conservative party investigating the monopoly on food in this country? All it will take is a war or natural disaster in one of the countries we buy our food from and we're screwed. Any nation that cannot grow it's own food is doomed. We're doomed. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Just like our telecommunications sector, the resource sector, the electricity market, etc., the government has allowed one or two companies to establish virtual monopolies and put the shaft to Canadians by gouging them to death.
scott nova scotia
I live in an area where I see many people on welfare when I walk to work. Some how they cannot afford to feed the children fruit and veggies but they sure can afford their cigarettes and booze. I do not make much money at all but my family always has fruit and vegetables. It is all about priorities.
FoundationalIssue
I think people need to stop with the whole "I can't afford fruits and veggies", maybe take a look at the foundational issue and find a job that works. Find a second income, or find something that can make you some residual income. Open your eyes there are lots of opportunities out there. Your ability to feed your family and yourself lays within your own hands. Stop blaming others and take responsibility for your actions. You buying that huge 60" plasma screen T.V. isn't making your family healthier. Sell the XBox, cut down on spending, get outside be active! Stop the blame game, enough is enough.
Samantha
I think the excuse that F&V are "too expensive" doesnt have much merit - most of the F&V I buy from both the grocery store and the market are by far cheaper than the other items I buy when I do groceries. It really comes down to what you buy and when, and what your motivations are. Unfortunately, fruit doesnt taste as good as something pumped full of artificial flavours and sodium, so people arent likely to choose it if theyre given a choice. I really do believe that if more people invested themselves in growing their own (even in limited space, you can grow some things!) and supporting their local growers, we would be a lot healthier.
Go to your local market, get to know your local farmers, it will benefit your body AND mind!
KK Calgary
6 months ago my husband & I made a lifestyle change...before we have a major illness. In this time we have found that we actually spend LESS on groceries than before. We are buying fruits vegatebles, meat ect but we are not buying pre-package suppers, junk food, cheeses. juices and pop. We have learned to make time to make our own soups, stews, pies ect and freeze then for the nights we are on the go. With a little organization you can make your meals ahead of time and they are healthier as you are not adding obscene amounts of sugar or salt. You know what goes into your food when you make it yourself. When grocery shopping stick to your list and do not impulse buy. It is hard and yes we do buy an occassional treat, just not all the time.
Doug ^^^ BC
Whoa!! Good one "PhDMED"It's sad,but true that in a free country,many people make bad choices.Buying unprocessed fod means you have to prepare it.Then,when you think about how cheaply you can eat some processed garbage,to man people make the wrong choice. Apparently a lot of people prefer to skimp on the things they NEED,so they can spend more on the things that they WANT.Then they come up with a litany of excuses for why they haven't made better choices. And yes,I'm often guilty of making the wrong choice too.But I do give myself decent marks for being able to "fess up" when someone calls me out.It's MY choice.It's MY decision.And ONLY I am responsible for how that works out.I have no reason to blame farmers,super markets,my neighbours,or my government.Maybe personal responsibility is a price we pay for what we all call "freedom".
Jason
Yeah, maybe if 3 days of fruit and vegetables didn't cost me the same amount as a month supply of regular grocieries, I might be more inclined to eat it.There may be some other fundamental problems with this statistic if Health Canada bothered doing an investigation as to WHY.When I'm visiting in the states or B.C., I eat a SIGNIFICANTLY larger amount of fruits and vegetables because the pricing is almost half, or even more than half price in some cases.
Andre
Health Canada pontifications are getting on my nerves. The snobs at Health Canada need to get their arse in a grocery store and see prices for veg/fruit are ridiculously high and organic is going the way of gold pricing. Please soapbox clowns stop yapping and do something about lowering prices if you expect us to swallow your constant B.S.!
Margot
The poverty population cannot afford to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at today's current prices for each member to have 5 different types of fruit and veg. They are lucky if they can afford two for each person, one fruit and one veg. As a senior on government limited pensions I cannot afford more that three fresh fruits for a week, i apple, 1 pear, 1 banana, the rest is frozen veg and forget salads. I have always been overweight even when I was fed all frest fruit and veg as a child, frozen was unknown as was a freezer and tinned was unacceptable. Fresh or go without. That also meant to imported foods from other countries. So, no chance of poison from pesticides and fertilizers. That slam-dunks the fresh food helps the obese. It is genetics. Age and health prevent me from growing my own veg in the garden. This winter I will try growing my own veg in pots in the house.
Kim from Ottawa
If you're worried about pesticides, considered participating in a farm share program. I have bought into an organic one for the past 3 years and not only is the produce amazing but it ensures that I am getting the recommended daily veggies. It is also relatively inexpensive and you are supporting your local farmers.
SuperSizeMe
A KFC Double Death sandwhich or a Little Mac, as long as they have more than a daily recommended sodium and fat intake I'm happy. Poutine is good too, oh my god I love Poutine.
Tracy from Winnipeg
There appears to be some items that either weren't reported on or weren't included in the original study - the reasons WHY people are eating fewer fruits and veggies. Cost is a big one - unless something is in season locally, it can be prohibitively expensive to purchase fruit. The other reason that I don't see included is the horrible choices. Once summer rolls around, and we have the option to buy locally grown produce, there's a nice choice. But buying tomatoes, lettuce oranges, etc in the dead of winter? Thanks to being picked when they're not ripe, and spending a lot of time in the back of a truck and in the dark, a lot of available produce in the winter tastes like cardboard. Why would you pay the exorbitant prices the stores are charging, to eat something that doesn't really have flavor?
Original Canadien
To cut costs, I've cut back on veggies in my diet and somehow lost 26 lbs(I do not eat any fruit, don't like the taste as I'd rather eat raw meat and have been doing dso for over 40 years - never sick) but I still make sure I have frozen veggies in my meals at all times - frozen being better than canned and so called "fresh" since vitamins are locked in within hours as opposed to sitting in transport and on shelves for days.BTW celery uses up more calories to digest than you take in so it is good for you beyond just the fiber.
tsousav
As a strong supporter of F&V consumption I believe that the best way to change this is from the bottom up. We need to teach the benefits of healthy eating with school aged children and to do that we need to support from provicial and federal health ministers. There are sites like freggietales.ca that helps educate kids on what the benefits are to eating F&V and there are also school programs like freggie fridays that has now started to roll out as a program but is being done on a school by school basis as the government really hasn't latched on to the opportunity. The pros of consuming F&V far outweigh the cons. F&V is clourful and tastes great. You might hate broccoli but love apples. There is nothing wrong with that. The produce industry works very hard to get the product toothe store shelves with the quality that you have come to expect. Use this report as a call to education for ourselves and our future generations.
The Village Idiot
Pretend all you want that fruits/vegetables are delicious but unless you put something on them they taste blah! You can only eat so much of this crap before it gets stale in the diet and you are pining for a cheese burger. I mean seriously you go on one of these veggie diets and it's fine for a week until you start turning a shade of deathly pale, feeling weak and getting grouchy because you want some meat! Unless you slather the broccoli in a fabulous cheese sauce that stuff is pretty hard to swallow without gagging. All this fruit and veggie talk is making me hungry...yeah...for a big bag of greasy movie popcorn slathered in coconut oil. I'm going to enjoy it and I don't feel the least bit guilty! You only live once and the Grim Reaper is comin' for all of us anyway. You can't beat death!
Ella-Max
So if Canadians are healthier because they eat healthier foods then our taxes going towards supporting our "health care system" should go down? I can only assume that health board of directors and all their staff could be down-sized since being healthy means we have less need for that bureaucracy and high salaries that come with it via our tax dollars. And the amount of studies being paid for by the government via our tax dollars should also decrease if we are healthier because of eating habits too. And wait times in hospital emergency rooms should be a thing of the past since we will all be healthier. Maybe with all the money we save Quebec will be able to score more than the "60%" in federal equalization transfer payments that they've been getting annually for years to pay for $7 daycare and Free IVF treatments costing between $10,000.00 - $30,000.00 per case. After all with all the money healthier eating will save the nation there will definitely be a boondoggle somewhere and we all know that "that" usually means French Disney Land gets the icing on the cake!
Jarrett, Ottawa
Lorne, if there are more pesticides and herbicides on your fruit and vegetables there are also going to be contaminants in everything else. Do you think they dont use pesticides on the wheat used to make the pizza dough of that frozen pizza, growth hormones in your beef and pork, heavy metals in your fish? Trickle down effect, you have to eat though. Just because the media tells you there are contaminants on your fresh fruit and vegetables you must be pretty naive to think it is not is the rest of the food. Might as well eat the fresh stuff.
MCW
In an "ideal" world designed by limousine liberals we could all be aware and afford arugula salad with bean sprouts night after night but the grocery stores aren't making "healthy" cheap. Go to Loblaws and check out the $9.99 watermelons.
Jennifer
How the hell can Canadians afford fruits and vegetables when the prices are so high? Go to a grocery store and look! People's salaries/wages are at 1980 levels while CEOs keep getting richer and outsourcing jobs to "Made in China" - forcing Canadians into lower salary/have-a$s jobs/no benefits/no nothing and many struggling and using the easy-squeezy credit card (backed by communist China) with high interests leading to bankruptcy. And "we" are supposed to eat better and by "organic" (even more expensive) because healthy Canadians are less a burden on the "wonderful" (sarcasm intended) health care system we're so heavily taxed to pay for. Yes some of Canada's armchair elites sure are good at telling us what to do because with their Harvard University degree they have 6/7 figure salary jobs and can well afford to spout off at the mouth about what we mere mortal Canadians should be doing. Get out in the real world you champagne socialists and see how the real Canadians making beer wages live and struggle. It's not pretty!
URU
Thats because food is sooo expensive and the Gov't isn't doing much to help the poor.
Doug ^^^ BC
Personally,I eat a lot more fruit and vegetables during the local growing season,and a lot less the rest of the year. I don't find these products overly expensive when I compare them to processed food in the same category. BUT,and maybe I'm to particular,but I find the quality of a lot of these imported fruits and vegetables to be less than desiberable.I canot speak for every region of Canada,but my taste buds tell me that local produce,no matter what it is I am eating,actually tastes good.Fruit from the Okanogan Valley is a prime example.I find the apples imported from the southern hemisphere have no taste,when compared to an apple grown in the valley.The same thing applies when I buy strawberries.The season here is short,but local strawberries taste like strawberries.I buy those big,red things from California,and it seems like I'm eating styrafoam. So,as another posterf askes,"why would we be inclined to eat some of this stuff".The residue from pesticides is an issue for some.The taste is an issue for some(or,at least me),and shelf life is an issue too.By the time you get a lot of imported produce home,it's not all that fresh any more. And finally.People do need to know that our parents and grandparents thrived of preserved fruit and produce for a long,long time.They had the same short growing seasons as we did,and they had no infrastructure to get imported food to local markets.
Sandusky
This is completely unacceptable people! The results of this survey should have been that 100% of Canadians consume five or more servings of fruits per day, not 43%. There is no excuse for this. Fruits and vegatables are cheaper than most other items at the grocery store, and the only natural source of the vitamins and nutrients that we need to keep our bodies healthy. If you don't maintain your health as Priority #1, then you will be incapable fo even formulating a Priority #2 or #3. Our health care costs are going through the roof and a simple way to control these costs is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I'm concerned that my tax dollars are being used to support unhealthy lifestyles nationally.
Canucks Fan
Anne, celery is a great fibre and good for the body. Too bad about the pesticides. I guess there has to be a fine balance. Wash well, and even after the fruit is cut, wash wash wash.Fruits and veggies are only part of the obese issue. Having a good sleep, exercise, turning off the TV might help too. Just a thought.
SAM
It's pricey....but, I'm buying more organic. I admit that when I focus on eating much more fruit and veggies that I feel better. However, I too am concerned about all the pest/fungicides in our produce. Cancer doesn't appeal to me any more than diabetes or heart disease. It's been reported that some of the newer East Indian fruit growers in BC's Okanagan don't follow package directions when treating their fruits with sprays. This is frightening.
PhDMED
The problem is that so many people are cheap with food, opting out for less expensive foods (canned, frozen, junk food,etc). Yet they dont see how eating badly may cost you your life in the long run.
Anne
Fruits and veggies 5 servings a day. Nice in theory, expensive in practice? I make sure the kids have the fruit, I'll do without if the fruitbowl is looking lean. Veggies is easier for dinner, since canned ones are not expensive. Carrots in the kids lunch. Celery too, but not sure how much nutrition there is in celery. Fewer taxes and more money in my take home pay would help with more fruits and fresh veggies.
Lorne
A study was just released a few weeks ago that outlined the amount of pesticides being used on fruit and vegetables.I would suspect that people will continue to eat less and less fruit and vegetables. The majority of Canadians are either in very good or excellent health. Why eat something that will only harm your health?Health Canada has still not issued their own report on the question of pesticides and what they do to your health.Why take a chance on killing yourself or ruining your health?
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