Issue
Proper nutrition is crucial for healthy development and growth and helps ward off severe conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Therefore, restrictions on nutrient-rich food due to a lack of financial resources are harmful to health (Anderson et al., 2021). The government-mandated Nutritious Food Basket (NFB) Protocol in Ontario should inform public policy to ensure that all residents can afford healthy food.
Background:
Since 1999, the 36 Boards of Health in Ontario have collected data on the cost of a basket of nutrient-dense meals (Efrati et al., 2018). The Chronic Disease Prevention program of the Ontario Public Health Standards gathers this data following the Health Protection and Promotion Act. It supports Ontario health boards’ efforts to “promote access to adequate, safe, nutrient-rich, and aesthetically pleasing food” in their localities (Cohen et al., 2018). According to the Nutritious Food Basket Protocol, local health departments can use this data for program planning to influence policy decisions and tie the food basket’s cost to the individual and household incomes. Health officials should research the determinants of health to aid in selecting priority populations and use population health statistics and information to steer public health activity (Power et al., 2019).
According to Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating, a dietitian must price 66 particular foods in at least six health unit grocery stores to collect this data. The data includes gender and age-related nutritional needs and typical pricing for different household sizes and individuals (Wendimu et al., 2018).
Current Status:
The Ministry of Health Promotion must receive Ontario’s boards of health’s annual NFB survey results. Still, only the local board can use the data to develop policy in partnership with local community organizations.
The Ontario government has received these polls annually since 1999. Therefore, the Ministry’s ten-year data collection on the cost trends of nutritious food in the province is reliable and accessible for developing food policy. According to the poll, food prices rose by about 10% in five years (Pirrie et al., 2020). In 2009, researchers conducted a second survey comparing recent NFB figures to hypothetical low-income individuals and four-member households living off Ontario Works (Okoye, 2020).
Key Considerations:
Many Ontario families struggle to meet their nutritional needs due to the rising costs of basic needs. Due to this, low-income Ontarians must pay rent and electricity, leaving little to no money for healthy food.
Given the solid evidence that health improves with increased wages, one in seven (12%) people have the highest average probability of having worse health merely because they cannot afford the requirements. Because of the links between poverty and concerns, including low birth weight, infant mortality, respiratory illnesses, obesity, oral health, and developmental outcomes, understanding how poverty affects children is of the utmost importance. With the release of Breaking the Cycle: Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, the government has made poverty reduction a primary goal (Amin et al., 2021).
The annual direct and indirect costs of obesity in Ontario are $1.6 billion (Lieffers et al., 2018). The Action Plan emphasizes healthy eating, but unless actions are taken to ensure that everyone in Ontario can afford healthy choices, individuals at risk will not have access to dietary interventions for disease prevention, management, and general health.
Limitations
Regardless of socioeconomic status, Nutritious Food Basket (NFB) statistics should not guide people’s consumption. Data collected by the NFB is not available for use at the state level. Not included are ready-made meals, snacks, and takeaways. It does not factor in people’s physical strength for hauling heavy items, their ability to use simple tools to prepare nutritious meals, or their desire to find the best deal possible. Last but not least, it is meant to be something other than a statistical breakdown of every reasonable pricing and variant.
Despite these caveats, it is a credible gauge of Ontario’s bare-bones spending on healthy eating. Nutritious Food Basket mandate has a duty and infrastructure to gather research to drive public policy actions to make nutritious food accessible to all Ontarians. It informs public conversation on healthy eating and addresses some financial elements of healthy choices. It can examine food expenses for school nutrition programs, elder living homes, shelters, daycare centers, and prisons.
Recommendations for equitable access to healthy foods for Ontarians:
The Nutritious Food Basket mandate assumes that local philanthropic models provide the best food availability. Critical recommendations for the effectiveness of the mandate include;
Ontarians being unable to afford healthy food is a sign of poverty and a potential threat to one’s health. Since the provincial government has already set poverty indicators and targets, NFB data can be used to gauge whether or not food is reasonably priced. Canada Mortgage and Housing statistics provide the minimum cost of accessing healthy food, similar to how they compute average rents. Along with cost and wage data, these are essential for developing government policies and programs to reduce poverty.
NFB data should be made public to make policy decisions impacting persons living in poverty. More people would be informed about the health risks associated with poverty. The Ministry of Health Promotion (MHP) shall compile and make public all feedback to inform policy. Bill 235, which established the Ontario Social Assistance Rates Board, was filed by Ted McMeekin in June 2007 (Penne & Goedemé, 2021). Based on housing costs and a monthly basic requirements list that includes the Nutritious Food Basket, the proposed board would recommend social assistance rates once per year.
The Association of Local Public Health Agencies has agreed with this suggestion (Lazarus et al., 2021). The Ontario government has advocated an increase of $100 per month in the basic needs allowance for all people receiving social assistance.
Conclusion
The NFB tool was carefully developed because all health units must calculate the cost of meeting minimum daily nutritional requirements annually. Food insecurity, such as low income and housing costs, must be addressed at its roots. Increasing and preserving nutrient-dense food access is impossible. According to the National Food Bank of Canada, public health will improve if they can help out 1.5 million low-income Ontarians (NFB). This will help the government reach its goal of making Ontarians the healthiest Canadians and alleviate the public health care system (Tuite et al., 2020). Long-term, everyone in Ontario should be able to purchase necessities.
References
Amin, M. D., Badruddoza, S., & McCluskey, J. J. (2021). Predicting access to healthful food retailers with machine learning. Food Policy, 99, 101985. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33082618/
Anderson, V., Gough, W. A., & Agic, B. (2021). Nature-based equity: an assessment of the public health impacts of green infrastructure in Ontario, Canada. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(11), 5763.https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5763
Cohen, B., Salter, K., Kothari, A., Le Ber, M. J., Lemieux, S., Moran, K., … & Salvaterra, R. (2018). Indicators to guide health equity work in local public health agencies: a locally driven collaborative project in Ontario. Maladies Chroniques et Blessures au Canada, 38. https://nccdh.ca/resources/entry/health-equity-indicators-for-ontario-local-public-health-agencies
Efrati Philip, D., Baransi, G., Shahar, D. R., & Troen, A. M. (2018). Food-aid quality correlates positively with the diet quality of food pantry users in the Leket Israel food bank collaborative. Frontiers in nutrition, 5, 123. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00123/full
Lazarus, J. V., Ratzan, S. C., Palayew, A., Gostin, L. O., Larson, H. J., Rabin, K., … & El-Mohandes, A. (2021). A global survey of potential acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine. Nature medicine, 27(2), 225-228. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1124-9
Lieffers, J. R., Ekwaru, J. P., Ohinmaa, A., & Veugelers, P. J. (2018). The economic burden of not meeting food recommendations in Canada: The cost of doing nothing. PLoS One, 13(4), e0196333. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196333
Okoye, O. C. (2020). Impact of Inclusive Policies on Health and Clinical Outcomes of Noncitizen Migrants: A Systematic Review (Doctoral dissertation). https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/45727
Penne, T., & Goedemé, T. (2021). Can low-income households afford a healthy diet? Insufficient income as a driver of food insecurity in Europe. Food Policy, 99, 101978. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306919220301822
Power, E., Belyea, S., & Collins, P. (2019). “It’s not a food issue; it’s an income issue”: using Nutritious Food Basket costing for health equity advocacy. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 110(3), 294-302. https://link.springer.com/article/10.17269/s41997-019-00185-5
Pirrie, M., Harrison, L., Angeles, R., Marzanek, F., Ziesmann, A., & Agarwal, G. (2020). Poverty and food insecurity of older adults living in social housing in Ontario: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 1-10. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09437-3
Tuite, A. R., Fisman, D. N., & Greer, A. L. (2020). Mathematical modelling of COVID-19 transmission and mitigation strategies in the population of Ontario, Canada. Cmaj, 192(19), E497-E505. https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/19/E497.short
Wendimu, M. A., Desmarais, A. A., & Martens, T. R. (2018). Access and affordability of” healthy” foods in northern Manitoba? The need for Indigenous food sovereignty. Canadian Food Studies/La Revue canadienne des études sur l’alimentation, 5(2), 44-72. https://canadianfoodstudies.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cfs/article/view/302
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