Region supports OMA’s proposed tax on junk foods
Posted Oct 24, 2012 07:11:43 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An aggressive campaign has been launched by the Ontario Medical Association against obesity.
It has the support from Waterloo Region’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Liana Nolan.
She tells 570 News what’s being done now to fight obesity clearly isn’t working and calls this approach by the OMA provocative, “Certainly policy can be a very effective tool. I think one of the reasons why we need to have this debate is because we need to figure out as a society how far we think we should go.”
The Ontario Medical Association is calling for things like higher taxes on junk food and graphic warning labels, like those used on cigarette packages.
Nolan says they learned a lot from trying to get people to quit smoking, “You have to look at how all the pieces fit together. We learned from the tobacco strategies, that just scaring people and just shocking people as a stand-alone way to try to get people to stop smoking isn’t effective on its own, you need to think about the whole strategy.”
She says this is a great way to get people talking and adds there’s a reason why the same approach was so effective with smoking, “The majority of people, as difficult as implementation was at the time, the majority of people thought it was the right way to go. I think we haven’t really had that debate around food policy and so I think it’s good for us to have these proposals out there and have people talking about them.”
Nolan adds this is a good way to find out if there is support, “Because none of these things would move forward without support. I think being provocative and sending these out there and getting some discussion on what people would support would be worthwhile.”
Nolan adds something different needs to be done than what we’re doing now. She says obesity is becoming a bigger problem and that it’s very difficult to make healthy food choices in the environment we currently live in.
OMA President, Dr. Doug Weir will be a guest on 570’s Gary Doyle Show this afternoon at 12:30.
