An Issue Of Sodium Consumption In Canada
Poor nutrition is a key risk factor in the current rise disability and morbidity seen in Canada. A key contributor to these chronic health conditions is high sodium consumption. Since most Canadians now consume 1100mg/d more than the required daily intake (2300mg/day), managing comorbidities has become increasingly difficult in the last century. It is estimated diagnoses of high blood pressure is present among roughly 25% of Canadians, over the age of 2017, 18. High sodium consumption among Canadians contributes to one third of these cases. Overall, high sodium consumption can result in stomach cancer, impaired kidney function, and osteoporosis. Pre-packaged processed foods contribute to high levels of sodium (in addition to fat and sugar) intake among Canadians.
For food and nutrition sectoral changes to occur, it is imperative that keen administrators and policy-makers are behind these changes. Policy development and implementation requires input from various sectors including (but not limited) health, education, environmental, agriculture and the food industry. Incidence is likely to decrease if set policies are optimized and enhancement of communication approaches to the general public.
Public health nutrition provides essential substantiation of the importance in sodium reduction policy efforts, that are highly crucial due to the rising rates of comorbidities. The safety of Canada’s food supply is highly dependent on the input of multiple subdivisions, all governmental levels, the food industry and consumers. Public health experts are pivotal players in examining health issues embedded in nutrition consumption and refining an efficient delivery approach of nutrition education, such as repercussions of high sodium intake levels. Overall, the collaboration among stakeholders advocating on the prevalent nutrition issue of high sodium consumption, and support from all levels of government in developing policies are critical.
There is a challenge associated with the introduction of public health nutrition policies (specifically sodium reduction) at the provincial level, the health promotion legislation and systems involved need to make drastic modifications. The introduction of nutrition policies institutionally, requires the involvement of an interdisciplinary range of individuals, and several economic resources. Also, changes such as sodium reduction, food labelling, or fortification of milk require extensive effort and long periods of time to establish and maintain. Hence, research is needed to prove that sodium should be reduced in, for example, processed food. Such research involves significant resources (people, money, etc. ), and can be very time consuming, often requiring several years.
Nutrition-related changes (such as sodium reduction) proposed by healthcare professionals are difficult for policymakers to implement due to various and clashing factors involved. This requires difficult adaptation by consumers and various modifications by the food industry.
Making such changes is challenging for the food industry, as their food products have a specific nutrient composition (e. g. sodium) and texture and flavours of food products is impacting by adjusted compositions. As a result, it is difficult for food industries to determine the most appropriate substitutions required sustain the satisfaction of consumers purchasing their food products. In addition, reducing salt would decrease the product shelf life and affect the safety of the product.
