POVERTY-
Globe & Mail ignores mention
of broader determinants of health
February 13, 2004
The Toronto Globe and Mail -- Canada's "Newspaper of Record" has been notorious for ignoring any mention of broader determinants of health.
Wednesday, they had one of their almost daily reports on obesity -- this time a report from the Heart and Stroke Foundation that -- obesity was now the #1 Public Health Issue in Canada.
Michael Polanyi submitted and had published the following letter.
Dennis Raphael's letter follows.Consider submitting your own. Letters@GlobeAndMail.ca
Also consider a comment directly to the editor Edward Greenspon: egreenspon@globeandmail.ca
What about poverty?
By MICHAEL POLANYI
Regina -- Re Fat 'The New Tobacco,' Heart Group Warns (Feb. 11): You rightly include diet, physical activity, emotional problems, medication use and illness among your "top 10 reasons" people gain weight, but you fail to mention the one factor that underlies all these: poverty.
Poor adults and children are more likely to be obese because they cannot afford healthy food and recreational opportunities and they are more likely to be physically ill, depressed and stressed out.
Indeed, low-income children have been found to have raised levels of cortisol in their bodies, which contributes to obesity directly by increasing fat deposits and, indirectly, by causing depression and associated unhealthy eating.
Dear Editor:
Michael Polanyi's letter (Feb.13) in which he identifies poverty as a major underlying cause of obesity raises a number of fundamental questions about the causes of disease in Canada and how it is understood. First, let me point out that Dr. Polanyi's analysis is absolutely correct. Additionally, poverty is the major underlying cause of heart disease, diabetes, and a wealth of other diseases that so preoccupy Canadians nowadays.
The additional questions are:
1. Why has the Globe and Mail -- despite its accomplished and knowledgeable public health reporter -- never once covered the relationship between poverty and health?
2. Why do disease organizations such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation continue to limit their analysis of the causes of disease to the "holy trinity of risk" of tobacco, diet, and activity?
3. Why do we hear nothing from our elected officials about the broad causes of disease despite Health Canada's turning out of reams of docments since the 1970's on just these issues? And finally,
4. Why is this the case for virtually all public health units in Ontario despite similar proclamations identifying poverty as a major determnant of health by the Canadian Public Health Association?
Dennis Raphael
Associate Professor
School of Health Policy and Management
York University, Toronto
Source: SDOH ( Social Exclusion and Health) listserv
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Page last updated February 13, 2004