Get junk food out of city facilities, and set example

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff says poor food choices harming kids.

The kids are not all right, at least not from a chronic-disease perspective. From obesity to Type 2 diabetes, to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and more, diet-related diseases, which when I went to medical school in the 1990s were almost exclusively relegated to adults, are now commonplace among children.

And while a great deal has changed over the course of the past 50 years, one of the most dramatic changes has been to food culture. There doesn’t seem to be an occasion too small to not warrant the use of junk food to reward, pacify or entertain, and is there a cause nowadays that isn’t encouraging an already overindulgent nation to purchase more junk food to fund children’s hospitals, schools, sports teams, kids’ clubs and more?

Though changing social norms is not likely to be quick or easy, leadership needs to come from beyond the grassroots if we’re going to see new healthy norms grow. Cities are in a unique position to play an important role.

It’s not enough to simply tell people to make healthier choices. Though I’ve seen signs stationed beside my local sporting arena’s vending machines encouraging potential customers to make low- or no-calorie choices, will a wellintentioned sign outweigh a canteen that offers almost exclusively no-name fast-food options? As an armchair mayor, I’d call for the removal of junk food for sale at all city-run facilities, arenas, libraries and schools. Rather than force parents to go out of their way to bring healthy choices, or to try to convince their child that no, they don’t want one of the dozens of exciting, sugary, fatty, fried options that are beckoning them pretty much everywhere and that all their friends are having.

We also need to put an end to the never-ending parade of junk food fundraising. Sure, it’s easy to sell the stuff, and yes, money is scarce, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t alternatives. Rather than rattle off a list, do a quick online

We also need to put an end to the never-ending parade of junk food fundraising.

search for “non-food fundraising ” and you’ll find dozens, if not hundreds, of other options. And that goes for school food as well. Many schools have fast food for sale on a daily basis. Pizza days, sub days, shawarma days and more are constant. And even if you want to try to argue that parents can “just say no,” or that the pizza has met Ontario’s school food policy requirements for sale, there’s no getting past the fact that by our hosting of these days, week in and week out, during our children’s most impressionable years, our kids, even the ones whose parents may be resisting, are literally being taught that weekly, even daily, fast food is a normal, acceptable and healthy part of life. To be clear, I’m not calling for a ban on junk food, just its sale in city-run facilities. Junk food, some of which we use to thoughtfully celebrate on birthdays, holidays, and just because we’re human, shouldn’t and needn’t be demonized. But at the same time, we need not make it the default choice. Instead we should build a community where junk food is something we need to go out of our way to find, rather than go out of our way to avoid.

Put another way, sure it’s a good idea to know how to swim, but if your community is permanently flooded, eventually someone needs to build a levee. As a society we need champions to look to for example. Schools, sporting arenas and hospitals are the logical choices to lead that charge.

Yoni Freedhoff is a family doctor, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, author of The Diet Fix, and founder of Ottawa’s non-surgical Bariatric Medical Institute. He blogs at www.weightymatters. ca/