Our Health, and Future Health Care II

Better health can be tackled through a multi-pronged approach.

Back in April I did a post related to problems in the overall health care system. At the Cameron Inquiry yesterday, Robert Ritter, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association, described the strain and stress of overworked medical personnel in all areas of care, besides the current area of focus now, Pathology. He says the pay increase has created anger among the medical association. That's a problem that NLMA are pressuring government to address. If my hearing is normal I think he also mentioned prevention (of illness) in his post inquiry press interview. In the meantime, what can the general publc do to relieve health strain?

As I mentioned in the April post, there are plenty of things we can do, like help prevent health problems that are within our control. We know that exercise helps. Avoiding foods, habits and environments that we know will lead to serious problems is another way. Last fall I was interviewed by Deanne Fleet about health care and the emergency room crisis at the time. Though only a small part of my chat with her was played, I mentioned a few ideas about how society has a role in how well the system runs. One was, why not have general health telethons each year to raise money not just for the Janeway, but for senior's care, or ER for example. How about putting more focus on healthier lifestyles and eating by an aggressive long term campaign of education? Emphasize taking control of our own health destinies.

And to reiterate briefly a few other suggestions regarding how government and health decision makers can affect future health care, there needs to be more stringent regulating of harmful food ingredients. The food industry has so much influence on what gets labeled as healthy. The health check symbol program is a good example. That program is misleading - many foods that are very high in sugars and sodiums are approved for the health check symbol. Let nutrition experts alone, not food industry reps determine Canada's food guide, and nutrition criteria for programs like the health check symbol.

One more, junk food advertising to children under 13 could be banned. That idea was introduced in the Ontario legislature in April. With obesity and type 2 diabetes on the rise in young people, there will be more chronic care required for younger people, unless this situation is analysed, and thoughtful preventative measures are put in place.

Health Canada Warm & Cozy with Big Food

Yes we are free to eat what we like, eat the very healthiest of food, all, some, or none of the time. So to a large extent, one would think, we can control health, and therefore protect ourselves against many sorts of medical problems associated with diet. Unfortunately, according to this award winning science/tech blog site called Weighty Matters, Health Canada, is looking out for the best interests of Big Food (see Feb. 27 articles). Now that's indigestible.

Health Canada is holding public consultations on whether or not to increase the available claims that Big Food can place on packaging, i.e., what constitutes a "low-fat", "reduced calories", etc. Such labels create health halos around the food.

According to obesity expert, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, Big Food wants Health Canada to make it easier for them to put labels on food which help them sell more of their products, for example, "low-fat" on candy snacks. The intention of food manufacturers of course is to increase sales, and properly worded marketing is worth $ millions. They know that "low-fat" or "reduced calories" will sell more. Researchers like Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University showed in three studies show that low-fat labels lead all consumers — particularly those who are overweight — to overeat snack foods.

While it's deliciously healthy, and quite filling for industry execs, it is not at all in the best interest of peoples' health.

Freedhoff is becoming a nationally recognized consultant on nutrition. He has appeared on Market Place on at least two occasions to open the lid on the misleading Health Check symbol (see previous posts here on the Health Check symbol sham).

In two recent blog posts he again exposes Health Canada's conflicting interests. Here's a slice from a Feb. 27 post:

Stay tuned tomorrow when I introduce you to the goings on behind the scenes at the current Happy Corporations (Health Canada) consultations into food labeling where surprise, surprise, the food industry has an invited seat to the table, the process is skewed dramatically in their favour, and with industry of course wanting it be made easier for them to make outlandish health claims on foods (health sells) in the absence of real evidence to support them.

If Health Canada is protecting the food industry's profits, while the very foods that get approved are hurting individual's health, then what authority can the general public rely on for real, and healthy, food nutrition information? Well one answer is, depend on yourself to research and educate yourself about foods, what's in them, and how food ingredients affect your health. Ok, yeah sure, we're all gonna become food researchers and find out about safe foods - just like how we take for granted, what elected representatives and their departments are expected to do.

Really, are millions of Canadians expected to spend countless hours, days, or months researching everything they consume or will consume?

Most people are busy with work, families, activities and living - they want quick information about food, but the more lax government criteria becomes regarding nutritious-sounding "health halos", the more likely people will overeat food that is harmful to them, get sick, and continue feeding the cycle of news-making "health care system problems".

The problems in Canada's health care system has been a constant in the news for decades. There are long waiting lists, staff shortages, lack of equipment like MRI, or CT scan units, and huge mistakes in testing, and emergency room problems. The interest of Health Canada should ONLY be in promoting the best habits of people, which in large part is food and diet related. It's such a misleadingly name department when they make it easy for food companies to get a misleading label on unhealthy food, yet people die by the tens of 1000s each year from consuming these very foods. What a contradictory organization!!

How about the department of health and the department of finance get together, talk about how much health cost expense could be saved if people were getting sick less, were not mislead by food labels, were assisted in their daily health education.

Speaking of education, perhaps education departments would want to get involved and teach some real world evidence-based information on healthy eating. Teach kids about what harmful product ingredients promote sickness, what are the recommended daily intake levels of known suspects like sodium, sugar, fat, white flour, red meat, and processed meats. Inform them of how most modern foods are grown, i.e., pesticides used in growing food. Teach them how to interpret nutrition labels - basically how to make educated food choices.

Hey Health Canada, help cut down on the health care problems by being on peoples' side, and promoting food which is evidence-based healthy. Protect people, not the food industry.

Note: The words in the above cartoon have been modified from the original. The artist is Matt Carmody, and the cartoon was taken from this site.

Health Check: Good for the Food Industry, not for People

The misleading continues with the Health Check symbol. Yesterday a CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) printed an online article called "Checking up on Health Check". The article is about how Health Check gives it's endorsement to foods that can make you seriously sick. For example, it said that the Health Check symbol has been allowed to go on iGor Chocolate Muffins for kids -

the muffins are almost one third sugar (mentioned on Dr. Yoni Freedhoff's blog in May of last year). Freedhoff is an obesity specialist, critic of the Health Check program, and Canada's Food Guide.

I posted in November about this deceitful symbol, and information from the blog of Dr. Freehoff. He has been exposing what the Health Check program has been allowing for their approval. Freedhoff says,

Parents will think, ‘This is great, I’m going to give these to my kids.’ Basically, they’re just shoveling sugar into their mouths.

The Health Check program process requires food companies to submit an application that has certain criteria. There is a one time evaluation of not more than $750, and upon approval, a licencing fee of up to $3625 for one product. If a company has 14 or more products the licencing fee can be from $16,500 to $49,500. So it amounts to a tidy income of close to $3 million a year for the Health Check program.

In the meantime they have approved over 1200 products, many have dangerous levels of sodium, refined white flour, sugar, and more red meat than is recommended. According to Dr. Freedhoff, these ingredients are major factors in type 2 diabetes, heart and stroke problems, and metabolic syndrome.

A good piece of advice is to educate yourself about what amounts of sodium, sugar, carbs, fats, etc. are recommended, and read the nutrition label anyway. The symbol's purpose is supposedly to be concerned with consumer health, but it can't be trusted.

Before long you will probably see it on other future products like MacDonald's MacClonewich or the Double Twin Cheese Burgers.

The Heart & Stroke Foundation Promotes Foods that Increase the Risks of Heart Attacks & Strokes

This symbol
is Misleading. It should be seen more as a warning than an endorsement of a food product.

When it is somehow allowed to be placed on an advertisement for a burger, a juice with much higher sugar levels than pop, then you know something's wrong.


The Heart and Stroke Foundation (HSF) promotes a Health Check program that is supposed to recommend food products that are beneficial, and not harmful to a person's health.

From the HSF article entitled, Judge a food by its label, is this statement about the Health Check symbol:

The Health Check symbol on menus is designed to help you make healthier meal choices when you are away from home.

On the contrary, and this is appalling, the Health Check stamp is getting stamped on products that are excessively unhealthy, and increase the risks of cancer, obesity, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

The HSF is a volunteer-based health charity, that is regularly seen in public ads. They have done great work in raising research funds - $90 million in 2005, and as it says on their splendid web site, they promote healthy living. It does not fit the image or the otherwise good work that this huge organization does, to be endorsing foods that cause the very illnesses they fight against.

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff is a specialist in obesity and weight loss. He was consulted by journalist Wendy Mesley for last weeks broadcast of Markeplace, which reported on sodium in food.

His blog, Weighty Matters, gives the scoop on the Heart and Stroke Foundations Health Check program. This current blog post is spreading the word about the revelations posted at Weighty Matters. Dr. Freedhoff's evidence-based information backs up his assertions that the practices of the Health Check program is unethical and misleading. (for future reference check his November, 2007 archives)

The criteria for a food product getting the coveted Health Check stamp is that the product has to meet the Canadian Food Guide standard. There's a big problem - the Food Guide that is still being used is 15 years old, has been criticized as deficient, and therefore, drops the standards so that many unhealthy meats, drinks, and children's food products, can get the Health Check symbol.

In light of the major study released just over a week ago that showed the relationship between red meats, high sodium level, and cancer, many of the foods that are endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation are detrimental to one's health.

As Dr. Freedhoff points out,

"Health Check, the Heart and Stroke Foundation's program that with their little logo, steers patients to products in a manner that they promote as,"

when you choose foods with the Heart and Stroke Foundation Health Check symbol, it's like shopping with their dietitians.

This is what people want to hear alright. People want to trust national health organizations.

Health Check's CEO Sally Brown, pointed out that "products must comply with nutrient criteria based on Canada's Food Guide."

That sounds great too.

Unfortunately, what sounds good is not what it seems. The Canada Food Guide that Ms Brown refers to is the 1992 Canada Food Guide. That, according to Freedhoff, "even Health Canada recognized as being deficient and behind the times."

A revised version was released in February of 2007 - "slightly less woefully deficient" (Dr. Freedhoff).

You would think that the criteria has also changed for applications for products to get Health Checks. The Heart and Stroke Foundation site says that the criteria will be revised and they hope to finish their revisions "in the next few months." It's 9 months since, and no revised criteria.

Why the hesitation? Work overload? Laziness? A cozy relationship with big meat and food companies? Money? Possibly. This is interesting - the Health Check program generates over $3 million annually.

From the good doctor's blog:

Perhaps it is that $3,000,000 annually, a $3,000,000 that has explicitly purchased the Health Check seal, that prevents Sally Brown from explaining how it is the Heart and Stroke dietitians are unable to state that in fact red meat's not healthy, that refined flours lead to metabolic syndrone, that sugar contributes to calories which contributes to obesity, that using cartoon characters to promote nutritionally deficient foods to children is wrong ...

Even though there is a small print disclaimer on ads, saying "this is not an endorsement", the Heart and Stroke Foundation actually brags about it.

With ground beef burgers being one of the most popular meats in the summer months, having the Health Check symbol in place now helps consumers understand that lean and extra lean ground beef can be part of a healthy diet.

The Health Check symbol is a powerful label, with magnetic product-selecting effects on the consumer. Food companies know this. In fact, in a 2004 research study, an HSF dietitian, Carole Dombrow said,

65% of consumers recognized the Health Check logo as meaning the food is
'nutritious', 'healthy', good for you', or 'approved by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.' Sixty-eight percent agreed with the statement: 'I can rely on Health Check to help me make healthy food choices.'

Here's an example of one the "healthy food choices" that Health Check endorses for kids:
Disney's Buss Lightyear Milk Buddies - a sugar sweetened milk beverage.


It has 22 grams of sugar per serving along with 140 calories. That' 5.5 teaspoons of sugar per 200 ml. Drop per drop it's the same amount of sugar found in Coca Cola and almost double the calories. For an obesity specialist like Dr. Freedhoff, calories and sugar are key players in diabetes and obesity. For more examples and detail, see his post on how Health Check sells junk food to children.

Just over a week ago when the World Cancer Research Fund released the results of an extensive report which recommended no more than 500 grams of red meat a week, not surprisingly, the Big Meat industry complained about it.

In his blog post, Why the Food Guide Matters Part II, Dr. Freedhoff points out, they turned to Canada's Food Guide to defend their product.

"Eating Well with Canada's Food Guide continues to recognize red meat in the diet. The Food Guide recommends 1 to 3 servings of Meat & Alternatives per day."

Again, that guide is outdated, but still used as criteria to allow food products to get the coveted Health Check symbol.

The informative Weighty Matters blog reveals much about the HSF and the Health Check program. Dr. Yoni has written letters to them in protest, outlining specifically the harmful food products they put their label on. He continues to discuss openly with HSF representatives this whole issue, and demands answers - but the answers do not justify the actions. The HSF and Health Check are being exposed, and will lose the public's trust if they continue to promote foods that lead to strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, cancer and other medical problems. Right now the Health Check symbol is very misleading, and that has to change.