Diet and exercise for better health

‘Ban’ on sugary drinks is a step toward a healthier community

City council is considering a proposal to reduce the availability of sugary drinks and bottled water at concession stands and vending machines in city recreational facilities.

I’m not a fan of the sugary drink myself, so I admit to a certain “who cares” attitude about the move, and as someone who believes in freedom of choice I should view this move a restriction on dietary choice, one that left to the people, not the state. But what I’m really thinking is, don’t stop there, what about chocolate bars and potato chips?

Obesity rates in Canada should be creating a concern for everyone. According to Statistics Canada, in 2014, 20 per cent of Canadians were obese. When combined with the number of people who are overweight, the percentage jumps to 61 per cent. We talk about the health burden of smoking and alcohol consumption for society, and now we’re focused on the health threats of the pending cannabis legislation, but we turn a blind eye to one of the most deleterious elements we could be ingesting on a regular basis: sugar.

We are what we eat. And if we eat junk, our bodies will be junk.

We are awash in unhealthy eating choices. Deep-fried, oil-saturated snacks and delicious sugary sweets deliver a quick fix, but provide calories empty of nutrition and full of all the bad stuff that accumulates in our bodies over time, leading to morbid conditions and early death. It’s hard to escape the stickiness of the sugar net, once on the lips … forever on the hips. But body image is the least of it.

Fat kills. Slowly and over time, it contributes to poor quality of life outcomes and will shorten your life if you have too much of it in your body.

The key to a healthy weight is calories in equals calories out. We eat what we need to power our bodies. If we don’t use our bodies that much, we drive everywhere, we sit at a desk all day, take the elevator, sit on the couch watch TV or play at the computer, if we exert the least amount of energy possible we don’t need that much food at all.

And, sad to say, most of us live this kind of life. It’s hard to work against prevailing practices and incorporate exercise and healthy eating into your day.

Although it begins with calories in, and you can lose weight or maintain a healthy weight with little or no dedicated exercise, exercise is for far more than weight control and expending nutritionally empty calories.

A number of Australian health and cancer organizations have recently come out with a statement endorsing exercise as a cancer treatment along with chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. They are quoted as saying: “if exercise were a pill it would be prescribed to every patient.” Researchers have found that cancer patients who exercise regularly experience more positive outcomes: fewer and less treatment side effects, fatigue, mental distress, greater remission and survival rates. For people with back and joint pain, exercise is the best medicine in building muscle resiliency, lubricating joints and reinforcing skeletal support. Exercise can also be helpful in controlling Type 2 diabetes and managing the effects of osteoporosis. Exercise could be as simple as a daily walk or some weight work with dumbbells.

The election is fully underway now and some kind of pharmacare is on offer by everyone but the Progressive Conservatives. I’m a supporter of pharmacare, having benefited from a drug plan for all of my working life and now as a retiree. I’ve never had a problem filling a prescription. The idea that everyone receives the same health care in Canada is a myth; there are those with drug plans and those without. I’m not going to expound on the plan of one party over another, but I am going to ask: what about diet and exercise?

Seeing that we are what we eat and exercise is medicine I want to ask all the parties, how is your party going to improve food choices for the citizens of Ontario? What about a sin tax on sugar, like there is on alcohol, cigarettes and soon to be, cannabis? Or tax credits for gym memberships or covering yoga or physiotherapy sessions? What incentives will you offer to tempt people to live healthier lifestyles?

There’s more to providing better health care than just access to drugs.