Canadians are opting for fast food instead of fruits and vegetables and generally don’t have a balanced diet, according to a new study.
Statistics Canada released the Canadian Community Health Survey: Nutrition on Thursday, the first national survey of dietary habits since the early 1970s and the largest survey ever conducted of what Canadians are eating.
Not only are Canadians skipping out on fruits and vegetables, they aren’t consuming enough milk products, and many are getting more than the recommended share of their calories from fat, the study found.
In 2004, 35,000 people were asked what they had eaten in the previous 24 hours, when they ate and where the food was prepared.
Overall, one-quarter of Canadians reported they had eaten something from a fast-food outlet in the last 24 hours. Among teenagers 14 to 18, the proportion was one-third. Men ages 19 to 30 were the most likely to get food on the go; 39 per cent of them had done so on the day they were interviewed.
To be fair, those who frequented a fast-food outlet could have ordered a cup of coffee or even a salad, but the survey found 40 per cent opted for a pizza, sandwich, hamburger or hot dog and a quarter of the respondents had a regular, not diet, soft drink to wash it down.
Those numbers support the indication that Canadians seem to be ignoring the advice of the Canada Food Guide, which separates food into four groups (fruits and vegetables, milk products, meat and alternatives and grain products) and has an added "other foods" category that covers fats, oils, sugar, snack foods, beverages and condiments.
The Food Guide recommends that "other foods" be consumed in moderation, but the survey found that after grain products, "other foods" ranks second as the top energy provider, supplying 22 per cent of daily calories for both children and adults.
Canadians are supposed to have a minimum of five daily servings of fruits and vegetables according to the Guide but about half of adults are falling short of meeting that target. Only 20 per cent are eating four to five servings and seven out of 10 children aged 4 to 8 are not meeting the five-serving standard.
When it comes to drinking milk or eating milk products, children and young teens are doing well. However, as Canadians age, that consumption appears to drop according to the data. A majority of seniors—about 80 per cent of men and women aged 71 or older—have less then the recommended two daily servings. Consumption of grain products also declines with age, the study found — and women are much more likely than men to fall short of the recommended level.
Men like their meat though, according to the study, while women eat far less of it. The Food Guide recommends 100 to 300 grams of cooked meat per day and about one in four men exceeds that on a daily basis. Almost no women consume more than 300 grams a day.
Canadians are within acceptable ranges for protein, carbohydrate and fat as sources of energy but the study notes that there are a few too many who exceed the recommended fat consumption. More than a quarter of Canadians between ages 31 and 50 are above the acceptable level and according to the survey findings, they’re getting the fat from a relatively small number of foods. Pizza, subs, burgers and hot dogs account for 15.9 per cent of fat intake, followed by cake, cookies and doughnuts.
It was Canadians with the highest incomes that were more likely to exceed the recommended fat consumption. A quarter of adults in the highest income households get more than 35 per cent of their total calorie intake from fat compared to 15 per cent in the lowest income households. That could be because they were also more likely to have eaten at a fast food outlet and the study also found they were eating fewer fruits and vegetables than people in the lower income households.
The nutrition study broke down the data by province and found in general Canadian diets are similar from coast to coast but did find some notable differences:
• When it comes to fruits and vegetables, 79 per cent of children in the Atlantic provinces are not eating enough, compared to 51 per cent in Quebec;
• But it’s only 26 per cent of kids aged 4 to 9 in the Atlantic provinces that aren’t consuming the recommended amount of milk products, compared to 37 per cent nationally;
• Quebec residents get a smaller proportion of their calories from snacks than other regions — 20 per cent for adults, compared to 26 in the Atlantic provinces. (Twenty-three per cent is the national average);
• Quebecers also eat less fast food than other Canadians, 18 per cent compared to 25 per cent. Ontarians were above average with 29 per cent of adults reporting they had eaten at a fast-food outlet in the previous 24 hours.
© CanWest News Service 2006
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