Canada Public Health

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The public health achievement discussed in this report is categorized under safer and healthier foods, but specifically healthier foods. This report will focus on Canada’s Food Guide as a public health achievement. The main topics to be discussed will be ways this public health achievement is related to various health issues, the history and success of the achievement and lastly a critical analysis about the achievement.
As mentioned previously the public health achievement focused on in this report is Canada’s Food Guide. Food guides are basic education tools that are designed to help individuals follow a healthy diet.1 The purpose of Canada’s Food Guide is to guide food selection and promote the nutritional health of Canadians.2 The original …show more content…

Starting in 1942, media campaigns were organized in order to bring awareness to the food guide through the radio and articles written in newspapers and magazines.1 Then in 1944 an education campaign was put to action that focused on individual provinces and the communities within them. Through these campaigns many people living in Canada were reached with healthy eating information.1 Contributing to the success of Canada’s Food Guide has been that there are versions in both English and French, as these are the official languages of Canada. The Food Guide has been available in leaflet, poster and pamphlet form which includes expanded information such as charts of shopping wisely, feeding babies and meal planning. 1 An important change was the availability of the Food Guide and its supportive materials through the …show more content…

It is limited in the fact that the guide features foods generally associated with a Western diet, as well as employing a Western biomedical perspective, which doesn’t necessarily encompass other social and cultural frameworks for understanding health and nutrition.6 Another controversy surrounding Canada’s Food Guide is that it has not been revised since 2007 and many citizens claim that it is outdated, too general and not that useful.7 According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal the food guide promotes overconsumption, doesn’t reflect what Canadians actually consider a serving size and doesn’t differentiate between good and poor sources of proteins and fats.7 I recommend two ways in which Canada’s Food Guide can be improved. Canada is a multicultural country therefore Canada’s Food Guide should be translated into many more languages than just English and French. It would be beneficial to have these translated food guides available in cultural community centers for easy access. Another recommendation would be to include different types of diets into the food guide, or to add some alternate food guides. These food guides would provide different food and nutrient intake suggestions for those who lead a vegetarian, vegan or dairy free lifestyle, to ensure they are still getting all of the proper nutrients that they

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