April 2019 Board Meeting - The new Canada’s Food Guide Information Report

Meeting Document Type
Information Report
The new Canada’s Food Guide

Prepared By:

Alicia Chan, Public Health Nutritionist, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention
Mariel Munoz, Public Health Nutritionist, Healthy Schools
Jennifer Jacob, Public Health Nutritionist, Healthy Families

Date:

April 1, 2019

Subject:

The new Canada’s Food Guide

Background:

Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) is a recognized education tool that helps Canadians support their health. Over the years, CFG has undergone a series of revisions, each seeking to ensure alignment with the most current evidence on nutrition and health, and making the recommendations applicable to the lives of everyday Canadians (https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-food-guide/about…). A new edition of Canada’s Food Guide was unveiled by Health Canada on January 22, 2019, a culmination of years of scientific review and public consultation (https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/).

The updated food guide has undergone significant changes. The new guide acknowledges that healthy eating is “more than the foods we eat” and encourages Canadians to consider how the context in which they eat may influence food choices. The updated food guide is also moving away from the one-document approach to a suite of online resources to better support Canadians. The suite includes recipes and other practical resources.

In terms of healthy eating recommendations, Health Canada has opted for providing a visual representation of a healthy balanced plate (i.e., half a plate of vegetables and fruit, a quarter plate of whole grains, and a quarter plate of protein foods). Part of a healthy pattern is to choose a variety of healthy foods each day. The following healthy eating advice is also offered:

  • Eat plant-based proteins more often;
  • Plan for meals and shop only what you need;
  • Cook more often;
  • Pay attention to internal hunger and fullness cues;
  • Make water the beverage of choice, and limit sugar-sweetened beverages;
  • Eat and enjoy food together with family and friends;
  • Limit foods high in sugar, saturated fat, and salt;
  • Limit processed food.

Additionally, the new food guide provides information about food labels, food marketing, food environments, and environmental sustainability.

A complementary professional guidance document, titled Canada’s Dietary Guidelines (https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/guidelines/) is available for health professionals as well as policy makers. These documents present new opportunities for public health nutrition practice and support many current and future advocacy initiatives, including the reintegration of food skills into the Ontario school curriculum, healthy food procurement policies, and actions to limit marketing to children.

More resources are slated for release later this year to help support the implementation and clarification of the new Food Guide. These include:

  • Canada’s Healthy Eating Pattern for Health Professionals and Policy Makers, which will build on Canada’s Dietary Guidelines and provide specific guidance on amounts and types of food for people across all life stages, such as recommendations for young children and older adults.
  • More online resources, to be expanded on an ongoing basis.
  • Considerations for Indigenous Peoples, which include healthy eating tools tailored to Indigenous Peoples that align with the new Food Guide.

Current Initiatives

Education and Communication for Key Stakeholders

Public health nutritionists and registered dietitians in Healthy Families, Healthy Schools, and Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention have reached out to key stakeholders to disseminate updates and changes, as well as to advocate for policy opportunities. It is also important to note that some nutrition programs are based on guidelines from the 2007 edition of Canada’s Food Guide, such as PPM150 (i.e., The School Food and Beverage Policy Nutrition Guidelines), the Student Nutrition Program Guidelines, as well as Nutrition Guidelines for Childcare Settings (i.e., The Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014).

Education for Staff and the General Public

National Nutrition Month, which happens in March each year, was celebrated by the WECHU with the release of an online challenge titled Building Healthy Habits with Canada’s Food Guide. The online challenge helped to build goal setting skills while also disseminating healthy eating information from Canada’s Food Guide, sharing additional resources and recipes with the general public.  Over 300 individuals registered for the challenge. In addition, WECHU registered dietitians presented various topics from the new Canada’s Food Guide during a total of four Healthy Active Living Segments on AM800 in February and March.

Finally, the CDIP registered dietitian has scheduled meetings with each internal department to disseminate the new Food Guide recommendations.

Nutrition Resources Update

The WECHU resources and webpages are currently undergoing review and updates to ensure that healthy eating messages are not outdated and reflect the new Canada’s Food Guide (e.g., do not mention the previous four food groups).

Advocacy Opportunities

Many opportunities exist in terms of advocacy. For example, a key section of Canada’s Dietary Guidelines promotes healthy food environments that align with Canada’s healthy eating recommendations, especially in publically funded settings such as schools and recreation facilities. Workplaces and other private organizations were also recommended to improve their food environments to make the healthy choice the easy choice. Examples of some aspects of food environment that influence individual choice include: food marketing and advertising, the availability, cost, and strategic placement of food choices, and different ways in which we may interact with food on a daily basis, such as fundraisers at school or meetings at work. Therefore, Canada’s Food Guide has also become an advocacy tool for WECHU to use when promoting healthy food environments in the community.

Canada’s Food Guide also places a major focus on the importance of promoting food skills as a component of food literacy to support lifelong eating habits. Food skills can be taught, learned, and shared in a variety of settings, such as at home and in schools (e.g., integrating cooking skills into the curriculum). This presents another avenue for advocacy for WECHU.

Consultation:

The following individuals contributed to this report:

Heather Nadon, Registered Dietitian, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention (CDIP)

Approved by:

 Theresa Marentette