Governments should take active lead to create healthy food environments to prevent cardiovascular disease

In 2010, unhealthy eating was identified as the leading risk for death and disability both in Canada and globally. In Canada, as in most industrialized countries, preventable cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease account for roughly two-thirds of all deaths each year. Poor diet, broadly defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one being high in sodium, saturated and trans fats, free sugar, and low in fresh fruits and vegetables, is among the leading risk factors.

Led by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research/Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada (CIHR/HSF) Chair in Hypertension Prevention and Control and supported by fifteen leading national and provincial health organizations, this position statement calls upon governments to take action to develop and implement healthy food procurement policies across the spectrum of our society. It also outlines key roles and recommendations for the commercial and non-commercial sectors including health and scientific organizations as well as the Canadian public.

The statement is based on a systematic review of the literature that found healthy food procurement interventions do have an important impact on food purchases within closed systems such as schools, workplaces, and isolated communities. The review further acknowledged that successful food procurement policies are nearly always accompanied by supporting education programs and sometimes by pricing policies, such as taxation or subsidies.

This statement is part of an international movement to reduce dietary risk, with the recognition that toxic foods (with excessive amounts of sugar, fat, refined grain products, and/or salt) are responsible for substantial population sickness and premature death. The supporting organizations call on all individuals, but specifically those with organizational responsibility for others, to immediately begin to work on implementing healthy food procurement policies as part of a comprehensive approach to reduce dietary risk and prevent diet-related disease.

“Education, knowledge, and awareness are not enough. Extensive education over a period of years, even in clinical trial settings, has only a small sustained impact on sodium consumption and obesity reduction,” says Norm Campbell, MD, FRCPC, Professor of Medicine, Physiology and Pharmacology and Community Health Sciences, at the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and chair of the Canadian Hypertension Advisory Committee. “The solution advocated by the United Nations and WHO focuses on a series of integrated governmental policies to improve the food environment coupled with education. Studies in the US show that implementing healthy food procurement policies in the commercial sector as a part of a