As national nutrition month draws to a close, the Dieticians of Canada want to promote a healthy relationship between people and their food.
“What we really try to focus on now is having a healthy feeding relationship with ourselves and to encourage healthy feeding relationships with our children,” said Melanie Warken, a public health nutritionist with the Sask. Health Authority in Moose Jaw and area. “I think a lot of people can tend to see food as something negative: that it causes weight gain or they might perceive it as bad for their body. We try to encourage people to think that food is meant to nourish our bodies. It’s meant to give us energy. It’s meant to have that social aspect of bringing people together.
“How can we trust ourselves to eat the right amount of food that’s meant for our bodies without restricting a lot of foods and how do we celebrate and enjoy food together?”
Warken said that this year one of the themes of nutrition month is the benefits of food and that it can bring people together. Eating together not only helps pass along food traditions across generations and cultures, but it can also broaden someone’s palate. Meals also have a strong social component too.
“There’s lots of research actually supporting the benefits of eating together as well,” Warken said. “Children and teens tend to do better in school academically. Pre-schoolers tend to have a better vocabulary because there is that social aspect of learning during meal time. Teens are less likely to smoke or use illegal drugs or alcohol. Adults tend to eat more nutritiously and they tend to drink less sugary beverages. They tend to eat fewer meals from fast food restaurants. Even looking from our senior population, they tend to experience less isolation and more enjoyment of the meals when they’re eating with people.”
This year’s nutrition month comes on the heels of changes to Canada’s Food Guide. Warken said that the Guide is a great tool that Canadians or health professionals or policy decision-makers can use to help support healthy diets of Canadians. She views the changes as positive and appreciates that it’s less prescriptive.
“It’s really moved away from telling people how much to eat for their section and their age and it focuses on all those other factors that influence why we eat the way we eat,” she said, adding that it also focuses on food literacy and food skills. “It’s way more comprehensive now than it used to be.”
“The new Food Guide is broader than it used to be and it talks about the factors that influence what we eat and how we eat and drink.”
As an example, Warken noted how traffic patterns in our lives can impact how, when, and what we eat.
“It’s hard to make healthy food choices if our food environments aren’t supportive for making healthy choices,” she said. “The Food Guide actually talks about the importance of our schools, our recreation settings, our workplaces having supportive environments to help people make healthy food choices. If all we’re ever exposed to is fast food, we’re more likely to make that choice.”
