Planning for Healthy, Active Communities: Does Toronto's Built Environment Promote Healthy, Active Living?

The use of renewable energies (RE) for electricity production can potentially deliver a range of social, environmental and economic benefits. With the passage of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act (GEGEA) of 2009, the Ontario government has introduced a comprehensive set of policy measures to foster the development of renewables and achieve other policy goals. The RE growth in the province has been accompanied by a number of challenges, preventing Ontario from realizing the full potential of its RE resources and capturing the associated benefits. As Ontario expands its RE generation, it is vital that it puts in place a robust support framework that can ensure successful RE implementation. This study examines Ontario's current legal and policy framework for renewables in the power sector and offers policy recommendations for improving this framework A qualitative comparative analysis of RE policies and programs in three jurisdictions - Germany, Denmark and Ontario is used to identify policy parameters and conditions that have proved to be significant for successful RE deployment in Germany and Denmark, and to evaluate Ontario's RE policies against these "success factors". Qualitative expert interviews are employed to elicit experts' perspectives about the performance of Ontario's current RE policy framework, the barriers to RE implementation in the province and potential policy solutions to address these barriers. The findings of this study suggest that Ontario has made important progress in establishing favourable conditions for RE development with the introduction of the GEGEA legislation and the FIT program. These policy initiatives kick-started the RE development in the province and have been key to a number of other positive developments, such as clean-tech innovation, emergence of a local RE industry and community power development. However, there have also been adverse consequences and implications, such as local opposition to RE and the perception that FIT costs are excessive. The study offers a number of policy recommendations for improving RE policy design and implementation and overcoming other barriers to RES in Ontario. The government should give higher priority to renewables in the energy planning. The specific design elements of FIT policy should be better tailored to RE policy goals. Following best international practices in RE policy design and implementation can help achieve this goal. The public engagement opportunities in RE development should be improved. A concentrated effort is needed to create an organizational culture supportive of RETs in the electricity sector. A longer-term perspective and a more integrated approach to energy policy-making is needed in Ontario. The province should initiative a discussion about the costs and benefits of nuclear refurbishment and the implications of continuing with the current nuclear path. Measures to improve integration of RES into the grid should be strengthened. Support for public outreach, education and provision of evidence-based transparent information can help improve the reputation of renewables and create stronger public support for this energy option

Social support, but not perceived food environment, is associated with diet quality in French-speaking Canadians from the PREDISE study

The objectives were to assess whether social support for healthy eating and perceived food environment are associated with diet quality, and to investigate if sociodemographic characteristics moderate these associations. A probability sample of French-speaking adults from the Province of Québec, Canada, was recruited in the context of the PREDISE study. Participants reported their perceptions of supportive and non-supportive actions related to healthy eating from close others at home and outside of home (n = 952), and of the accessibility to healthy foods (n = 1035). The Canadian Healthy Eating Index (C-HEI) was calculated based on three Web-based 24 h food recalls. Multiple linear regression models showed that supportive (B = 1.50 (95% CI 0.46, 2.54)) and non-supportive (B = −3.06 (95% CI −4.94, −1.18)) actions related to healthy eating from close others at home were positively and negatively associated with C-HEI, respectively, whereas actions from close others outside of home were not. The negative association between non-supportive actions occurring at home and C-HEI was stronger among participants with lower (vs. higher) levels of education (p interaction = 0.03). Perceived accessibility to healthy foods was not associated with C-HEI (p > 0.05). These results suggest that the social environment may have a stronger influence on healthy eating than the perceived physical environment. This adds support for healthy eating promotion programs involving entire families, especially for more socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, whose efforts to eat healthily may be more easily thwarted by non-supportive household

Integrating Food Policy with Growing Health and Wellness Concerns: An Analytical Literature Review of the Issues Affecting Government, Industry, and Civil Society

Over the past few years, there has been growing global interest in the link between food and health. This paper provides a review of some of the recent literature describing these linkages. The first section provides an overview of findings that link the consumption of fruits and vegetables, meat, eggs, whole-grains, alcohol, sugar, dairy, fish, pulses, soy, and nuts to coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. The authors then summarize various international and domestic non-government organizations' views about these issues. The third section centres on the food industry and its responses to growing health concerns. The fourth section is an overview of public policy relating to food and health, including the use of food policy to change consumption behaviour and address obesity. This section also includes a discussion of the relevance of policies designed to discourage smoking to the current debate on obesity. The Conclusion highlights ways in which Canadian food policy can be adapted in order to better promote health and wellness.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, Agribusiness,

Ethnic differences in maternal diet in pregnancy and infant eczema

Background The global prevalence of childhood eczema has increased over the last few decades, with a marked increase in high-income countries. Differences in prevalence of childhood eczema between countries and ethnicities suggest that genetic and early modifiable environmental factors, such as dietary intake, may underlie this observation. To investigate the association between pregnancy diet and infant eczema in a consortium of prospective Canadian birth cohorts predominantly comprised of white Europeans and South Asians. Methods We evaluated the association of maternal dietary patterns reported during pregnancy (assessed at 24–28 weeks gestation using a semi-quantitiative food-frequency questionnaire) with parent-reported physician-diagnosed infant eczema at 1-year from 2,160 mother-infant pairs. Using three dietary patterns (“Western”, “plant-based”, and “Balanced”) previously derived in this cohort using principal component analysis, we used multivariable logistic regression to determine the association of these dietary patterns with infant eczema, adjusted for potential confounders. Results We observed a lower odds of eczema in the full sample combining white Europeans and South Asians with greater adherence to a plant-based (OR = 0.65; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.76; <0.001) and Western dietary pattern (OR = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.60, 0.89; P<0.01), after adjusting for other known predictors of eczema, including ethnicity, which was not significant. No associations were observed for the balanced diet. An interaction between the Western diet and ethnicity was observed (P<0.001). Following stratification by ethnicity, a protective association between the plant-based diet and infant eczema was confirmed in both white Europeans (OR = 0.59; 95% CI: 0.47, 0.74; P<0.001) and South Asians (OR = 0.77; 95% CI: 0.61, 0.97; P = 0.025). In white Europeans only, a Western diet was associated with a lower odds of infant eczema (OR = 0.69; 95% CI: 0.56, 0.87; P = 0.001) while a balanced diet increased the odds of infant eczema (OR = 1.23; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.49; P = 0.03). Beyond a plant-based diet, no significant associations with other dietary patterns were observed in South Asians. Conclusion A plant-based diet during pregnancy is associated with a lowered odds of infant eczema at 1 year in all participants. Future studies of the components of plant-based diet which underlie the lower risk of eczema are needed