YOUR HEALTH 

 OMA and junk food insanity

The Ontario Medical Association in news releases October 24, 2012, is recommending that certain foods should be treated like tobacco, and through a combination of higher taxes and health danger warning labels and gross images, should to systematically targeted so people – especially young people – can be forced to ‘kick the habit’ and avoid the growing obesity epidemic, type 2 diabetes and other ill health consequences.

The foods – labeled by the OMA as JUNK FOODS – are high in calories, high in sugar and low in nutrition – according to the OMA.

The list especially targets pop containing sugar, Chocolate milk, fruit juices and pizza among others.

 

* * * * * * * * *

 

However, there are a number of problems with this list of ‘harmful foods’, and the overall OMA mindset.

Pizza – some dozen years ago the U.S. Health Dept. declared pizza a ‘healthy food choice’ and removed it from its junk food list.  Pizza has a balance of grains, dairy, fruit and optional meat that the U.S., department realized was actually good for you.

Drinks:

While diet pop is sugar free and now the only pop available in school cafeterias and machines across Ontario, aspartame, the replacement sweetener, is itself now under attack for causing individuals severe health repercussions.  The Internet is full of such warnings.   So the choice seems to be added sugar or a potentially more harmful substitute.  I’ll take the natural sugar, thank you,  unless I am dieting!

Chocolate milk was also on the death list in Ontario schools until someone pointed out that chocolate milk accounts for most milk/dairy sales in schools as most children avoid plain milk or yogurt.  As milk, even when brown, is a great source of protein, vitamins and essential nutrients, the Ministry backed down and allowed chocolate milk – which today is 1% skim milk (read low fat) – to survive.   So get real, OMA.

Juice is also an OMA target.  Not coloured ‘drink’ packages which are now banned in Ontario schools (as they are really coloured sugar water that misleads buyers into thinking they are real fruit juice—a cheap con if there were was one.) but real juice – apple juice, grape juice, orange juice, etc.  Too much sugar, I suspect, but, again, juice is the next best thing to eating raw fruit.  Filled with vitamins and essential nutrients, juice, till now,  has been considered  healthy and part of Canada’s Food Guide recommendations!

 

So, what is one left to drink besides white milk in the OMA’s world ?   Only water.

   

The Obesity Epidemic --- Lie

Yes, I believe it is a lie that 1 on 3 people under 18 are significantly overweight or obese and we have an obesity epidemic among our young.

The youth obesity epidemic does not seem to exist in my part of the GTA.  Go to any high school in York Region, go to the Vaughan Mills Mall or Yorkdale or the Eaton Centre and sit and look. Obese people are extremely rare and for every one I see, there are at least 4 to 5 others - females usually - who look anorexic.

The BMI weight scale is the real problem and why, suddenly, there are more overweight and obese children than ever before – despite the fact sugary pop, milk chocolate (with much higher fat content) and pizza have been staples of children and teen diets for over ½ a century.  (And don’t forget chocolate bars and potato chips filled with salt).

Put simply, people and children haven’t changed, only our medical guidepost – the BMI –  has changed how doctors and the public perceive normal weight.

The creator of the BMI, on a CBC radio interview soon after its release, gave some caveats:
1. it is a statistical formula based on data from mostly white adult males. It therefore poorly fits adult females and peoples of other genetic and ethnic backgrounds -- i.e., Hispanics, Hawaiians, Chinese, South East Asian and those of African descent.

2. As he also warned, it does not apply to anyone under age 18 as they were not part of the data base and children have different and changing body norms.

As well, as the Globe and Mail editorial a while back pointed out, Sidney Crosby is 'obese' by BMI criteria -- and I would add so too are all WWE wrestlers, and Olympic weight lifters - both male and female.

 

So, OMA, get a reality check and stop your distorted and unreal obesity mania mindset.

Next, you’ll be telling us to eat just bread and water – super low in calories, sugar and fat.  … Oh, sorry, that was how prisoners and concentration camp inmates were abused in the past.