Eat healthy food, avoid processed foods, cut saturated fats, exercise daily, prioritize at least eight hours of sleep per night.
We’ve all heard the advice of physicians and healthcare professionals on how to live a healthy life. Yet, as reasonable as these guidelines may be, living a healthy life in Canada cannot be simply solved by changing eating habits.
In reality, institutional barriers exist that make it nearly impossible for people to stay healthy, and without changing the system, we aren’t fixing the crisis.
Studies show that lower socioeconomic status is linked to worse health outcomes and higher mortality rates. The poorer you are, the worse your health is likely to be.
This is only exacerbated by the fact that the alarming rise in food prices is not evenly distributed. From April 2017 to April 2026, the price of a kilogram of tomatoes nearly doubled. In comparison, a box of Kraft Dinner, a processed, packaged macaroni and cheese product, is only around $1.50.
Health guidelines notwithstanding, lower-income Canadians simply can’t afford to splurge on health, especially if they have large families to feed. Apart from the price, healthy food takes longer to prepare, and some people just don’t have the time.
Beyond affordability, lower socioeconomic status also correlates with time scarcity, and both factors correlate with lower instances of physical activity and lower consumption of whole foods (fruits and veggies).
Canadians, on average, work 1,704 hours per year, more than most developed countries. This “hustle culture” of working long hours is not just on the rise in work environments — it’s becoming the expectation. Just 8 percent of professionals stick to the core hours they work, while 41 percent start early and finish late.
In comparison, Europe — where overtime hours are strictly regulated — often has a hard cap on the amount of hours that any person can work.
More Canadians have begun taking on extra jobs to make ends meet, with 87 per cent of job seekers having worked a side hustle at least once.
Canadians also don’t have as many opportunities to exercise outside of specifically allocated times. The reality is, Canadian cities were designed to be car-centric, and very few Canadians outside of urban cores use any other forms of transportation outside of automobiles.
Canada is the fourth most vehicle-dependent country in the world. Passive ways for Canadians to incorporate physical activity in their daily lives, such as walking to work and running errands, are functionally impossible.
The key issue is that public health is considerably more multi-faceted than we think.
A singular variable, like eating healthy, cannot determine health outcomes on its own. Physical activity and social interactions are notably beneficial for both physical and mental health, and healthy food takes time and money. All of these require ample amounts of free time that Canadians in lower socioeconomic situations cannot feasibly provide, and as a result, our population’s health is impacted.
At this point, public health officials must shift from raising awareness of the factors impacting health and, instead, dismantle barriers that prevent our population from being healthy.
With the advance of knowledge that we have come across in learning what creates a healthy life, systemic changes must catch up. Healthy food does not simply equate to a healthy population anymore. We have to look directly into ways that we can create healthy, sustained lives for everyone, not just those that can afford the time to do it.
Angelina Liu is a fifth-year Psychology student and The Journal’s Graphics Editor.
Tags
Healthy eating, healthy living
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.