Canada's food guide

Canada's Dietary Guidelines: Section 4 Implementation of dietary guidelines

Programs and policies that align with Canada’s Dietary Guidelines provide an opportunity to create supportive environments for healthy eating. Understanding and acting on the barriers that make it challenging for Canadians to make healthy food choices are essential for the successful implementation of these guidelines.

Decisions about healthy eating are influenced by many aspects of our social and physical environments, from household income and food skills to government food policies. The health sector works at federal, provincial, territorial, and regional levels to build understanding of nutrition issues and foster inter-sectoral approaches. This is to ensure that decision makers consider the health impacts of policies and programs along with other government priorities.

Health charities and professional regulatory bodies/associations, in their efforts to reduce the risk of chronic disease and promote health, complement the efforts of governments to support implementation of dietary guidelines.

All sectors—including agriculture, environment, education, housing, transportation, the food industry, trade, as well as child, family and social services—have a role to play for Canada’s Dietary Guidelines to have far-reaching and longstanding effects on the nutritional health of Canadians. It is necessary to identify and address the physical, economic, and social barriers to healthy eating. These sectors can make policy decisions within their sphere of influence to improve the accessibility and availability of nutritious foods to Canadians of all ages and backgrounds. Identifying barriers, and opportunities, during policy and program development is essential to the creation of supportive environments for healthy eating across the country.

Healthy eating requires that nutritious foods be available and accessible.

Access to, and availability of, nutritious food options vary within and between population groups. Health inequities arise when these differences are unfair and avoidable.^{Footnote 1} Dietary guidelines are intended to contribute to advancing health equity  while ensuring that they do not make inequities worse.

Health inequities are related to factors and conditions (biological, social, cultural, economic, and environmental) that affect health.^{Footnote 1Footnote 2Footnote 3} These factors and conditions are the determinants of health. The determinants of health have also been made more specific for some Indigenous populations of Canada by taking a more holistic outlook that addresses the unique historical, economic, political and social factors impacting the wellness of Indigenous populations.^{Footnote 4Footnote 5} These specific determinants include the social determinants of First Nations health and the social determinants of Inuit health.

The determinants of health combine in ways that impact eating behaviour. It is essential to identify barriers to accessibility and availability of nutritious foods. This can help identify the most appropriate and effective interventions to promote supportive environments for healthy eating across the country.

Canada’s Dietary Guidelines are one part of a comprehensive approach to supporting healthy eating. Addressing the determinants of health and reducing health inequities is required to help Canadians make healthy food choices that are aligned with the guidelines in this report.

Certain populations are at increased risk of poor dietary intakes.

Nutritional risk factors (such as low intakes of vegetables and fruit) for chronic diseases and conditions are often termed “modifiable.” However, many people are not able to make changes because their food environment or life circumstances do not support accessibility and availability  of nutritious foods. Underlying health inequities can contribute to food insecurity and poorer health outcomes in some groups in Canada. Those at greater risk of poor health include: Indigenous Peoples, people living on low incomes, people living in rural areas, and newcomers to Canada.^{Footnote 1} These groups are often affected by a number of factors that influence their ability to make healthy eating decisions.  

For example, Indigenous Peoples who live in remote, isolated, and northern communities often have limited access to nutritious foods (including traditional food). This may be negatively influenced by limited employment opportunities and low incomes; environmental changes affecting traditional food harvesting and consumption; lack of access to the land and resources; loss of cultural identities, traditional knowledge, and food practices; and the unreliable supply, quality, and high prices of store foods in remote communities.^{Footnote 6} Underlying determinants have contributed to an unacceptable socio-economic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.^{Footnote 4Footnote 5}

In another example, newcomers to Canada may bring with them a food culture they wish to preserve and share. Supporting the preservation of food cultures may help maintain healthy eating habits among newcomers. It may also help sustain the “healthy immigrant effect.” This is the observation that recent immigrants—particularly those migrating in adulthood—are sometimes in better health compared to Canadian-born residents.^{Footnote 7} This advantage is often lost over time because of factors such as acculturation. Additionally, access to nutritious foods may be difficult because of a combination of issues, such as lower income, language and transportation barriers, as well as availability issues, such as limited markets for culturally acceptable foods.^{Footnote 8}

Children and older adults from all backgrounds can be particularly vulnerable to poor dietary intakes. A child’s food choices are shaped by the foods that parents or caregivers are able to select and prepare. Household income, parental employment status, and parental health all affect the food choices available to children. In addition, adult food purchasing decisions are influenced by other factors, including convenience, commercial messages, and endorsements targeting children. Children themselves are vulnerable to the complex information environment—in particular food marketing techniques that have been shown to steer food choices in the direction of highly processed products.^{Footnote 9Footnote 10}

Older adults now outnumber children in the Canadian population.^{Footnote 11} Older adults may be at risk of poor dietary intake, depending on whether they were exposed to positive or negative influences on their health over time. Older adults can be affected by socio-economic conditions, such as lower income, which may limit their ability to travel, purchase and transport nutritious foods.^{Footnote 23Footnote 24} Changes in functional ability can also influence the food choices and eating behaviour of adults in later life. Some older adults face mobility or dexterity issues that can cause them to increasingly rely on others for food shopping and meal preparation.^{Footnote 24} They may face social isolation with changes in family and social networks and loss of loved ones over the years. Social isolation can lead to depression and a lack of motivation to prepare and consume nutritious meals.^{Footnote 24} While women are more likely to lose a spouse, widowers may have fewer food skills and be less able to prepare nutritious meals for themselves. Older adults’ food intake can also be affected by physiological changes, such as poor oral health, diminished appetite, sensory changes, altered digestive processes, chronic health issues, and the effects of medication.^{Footnote 23Footnote 24}

To support healthy eating for all Canadians, collective action on the determinants of health is needed by all sectors to complement and extend the foundation for healthy eating provided by Canada’s Dietary Guidelines. 

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