Food Addiction In Canada

Addicting chemicals used by big corporations under the protection of the Canadian Government are causing the general public to consume more and play less. Food addiction has been scientifically proven to have an astounding effect: “When these experiments were replicated by Hoebel and his colleagues using sugar as the possible substance of abuse, the results were the same as for alcohol and narcotics. Thus, laboratory animal research originally designed to mimic human behavior with alcohol and narcotics showed that sugar could cause biochemical cravings”(Werdell). These chemicals are being implemented throughout Canadian society, causing consumers to buy more product and therefore bring in greater sums of money for the production and distribution
companies. Sugar and aspartame are two common chemical compounds used because of their capacity to sweeten drinks. Less known is that these chemicals have horrible side effects on the human body. Some of the effects of aspartame alone include such issues as cancer, seizures, depression, birth defects, or even Alzheimers(Krucik). Many different kinds of artificial sweeteners are used to make foods more addictive to the human body, and they often do result in real addiction: “An addiction to food means that increased current eating raises both future weight and the desire to eat more in the future.
Addiction to food presents a logical explanation for why consumers persist in purchasing and consuming more food than is necessary for survival”(Rosin). Canadians as a whole consume copious amounts of soft drinks and artificial foods such as sandwich meats because of how cheap and easy-to-use they have become. No rules or regulations are in place to prevent the over-consumption of these foods, which results in Canadians being able to buy, in bulk, the worst items for them, and for much less than if they purchased the foods they should be consuming. Moreover, the people of Canada are consuming fewer fruits and vegetables than ever before, with fifty percent of adults, and thirty percent of children ages four to eight failing to eat the recommended daily servings of vegetables, which are only eight and five servings respectively(Ogilvie). Fake foods are not only unhealthy themselves, but they also promote an unhealthy style of
living. Furthermore, Canada’s Food Guide is outdated and leads to confusion around improperly labelled foods and what they actually contain. For example, sugar has over fifty-six different names used on modern food labels(Ogilvie). Because of the lack of healthy foods being consumed, Canadian diets now derive twenty-five percent of their calories from the “others” section of the Canada Food Guide, and sixty-two percent of the overall diet comes from pre-packaged, ultra-processed foods(Ogilvie).
Food addiction has become an issue because of corporations, especially fast food industries; entire engineering teams are put together by these corporations to create new additives that are made to be as addictive as possible to increase the consumption of their products(Rosin). Further effects of increased food consumption include a reduction in physical activity and psychosocial(both psychological and social health) problems. The minimum amount of recommended physical activity is rarely met by the majority of the public; only nine percent of youth, four percent of adolescents, and fifteen per cent of adults regularly meet their minimum weekly requirement(Raine). Because of the decrease in physical activity, use of electronics has skyrocketed over the last decade. On average, Canadians spend forty hours per week using electronics, which in turn leads to increased consumption of snack foods such as chips or
sodas(Ogilvie). With the introduction of fast food, entire families have been drastically altered, and with new generations will create a chain reaction of biblical proportions. Children often take up the habits of their parents, and because Canada is becoming increasingly overweight and inactive, so too will the generations that follow. All the more terrifying is that many obese Canadians are in denial. While fifty-one per cent of Canadians are self-reported overweights, it was found that actually sixty-two percent of the population is overweight or obese. There are twenty-two million Canadians that exceed the recommended Body Mass Index(BMI) of twenty-five or lower, and four million of which are ignorant of their own cause(Picard). While Canada does have several administrations which are in place to regulate food, there are none more prevalent that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA). The CFIA is in charge of balancing the economic and safety implications of food on Canada and its people. In 2010, the CFIA made it standard that all fast foods must be properly labelled and must include accurate fat content, but in 2011, they revoked that standard as well as the one that forced grocery stores to keep their labels accurate as well(Aipersbach). The CFIA revoked its laws because it did not receive proper funding and fast food brought money into the economy, and the government did nothing to help stop false labelling. Because the Canadian Government provides little to help its people in this growing crisis, obesity continues to run rampant throughout the entire country.