Health — Issue No. 13 — Tuesday, October 17, 2006 (HTML)

2006 Legislative Session: Second Session, 38th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
MINUTES AND HANSARD

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
HEALTH



CONTENTS

		Page

Presentations		224
	K. Stobbe
	R. Kerr
	B. Jeune
	M. Ralph
	E. Maclean
	D. Solhjell
	G. Chadwick
	C. Girard
	K. Graham
	L. Barkley
	A. Robertson
	N. Guthrie
	W. Westbrook
	P. Walker
	N. Lawrence
	S. Sam
	E. Faulkner
	I. Blyleven
	B. Jorgensen
	C. Ivey
	G. Lindenbach
	M. Best
	T. Bertagnolli

Chair:	* Ralph Sultan (West Vancouver–Capilano L)
Deputy Chair:	David Cubberley (Saanich South NDP)
Members:	Dave S. Hayer (Surrey-Tynehead L) Daniel Jarvis (North Vancouver–Seymour L) John Nuraney (Burnaby-Willingdon L) * Valerie Roddick (Delta South L) * Katherine Whittred (North Vancouver–Lonsdale L) * Katrine Conroy (West Kootenay–Boundary NDP) * Michael Sather (Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows NDP) * Charlie Wyse (Cariboo South NDP) * denotes member present


Witnesses:	Laura Barkley Erica Benson Terryl Bertagnolli (B.C. Cancer Agency) Meghan Best Isaac Blyleven Georgia Chadwick Elijah Faulkner Chloe Girard Kirsty Graham Nick Guthrie Dr. Carl Ivey Brandi Jeune Bryan Jorgensen Rachel Kerr Nancy Lawrence Graham Lindenbach Emily Maclean Megan Ralph Alyssa Robertson Scotti Sam Danika Solhjell Kristyn Stobbe Mack Thompson Pam Walker Whitney Westbrook

R. Sultan (Chair): Good afternoon. My name is Ralph Sultan. I'm the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano and the Chairman of this select standing committee. I'd like to welcome everybody in the audience and thank you for taking the time and considerable effort, as we've been told, to participate in this important process.

I'd particularly like to thank the students and youth of Carihi here in Campbell River for coming out and giving us the benefit of their thoughts on how we politicians can better address the growing issue — in fact, some would use even more apocalyptic words, such as crisis — of childhood obesity in British Columbia.

I would also like to thank Tom Demeo, your principal, who has told me about the values of this fine institution. I look at the back of the room and see this banner up on the wall: "Diversity is celebrated." I think it's a wonderful slogan and certainly is one of the reasons we are here, because we have a limited opportunity to go out into the heartlands of British Columbia and consult, particularly with the youth. We have chosen Campbell River and this institution as representative of many points of view. We look to you to bring all of those different points of view out this afternoon.

I'd also like to thank Jane Kolmatycki for the work that I understand she's done to help pull this all together.

It's vitally important that this committee hear from youth on this issue of childhood obesity. After all, any policies that this government in Victoria recommends — that we recommend to the government in Victoria — are likely to have a direct impact on your lives, how you spend your money, how much exercise you get at school, the composition of your curriculum and what you will be able to consume in the way of food and on what terms.

This is the first time in the history of the Legislature of British Columbia that a parliamentary committee of this sort has actually gone out to consult with youth, specifically. So in a way, we are breaking new ground by coming to talk to you this afternoon. This is a parliamentary first, and our Committee Clerk informed me ten minutes ago she certainly intends to tell other parliamentarians around the world at their periodic get-togethers how we have pioneered in this respect.

We've even gone further. This morning we had expert witness testimony, as it were, from a nine-year-old from General Brock Elementary School in Vancouver. I think no one nine years old has ever before appeared before a parliamentary committee in British Columbia. So that's a second first that we're very proud of.

We have been charged by the Legislature to bring forward recommendations on how British Columbia should address this growing problem of childhood obesity. Just to provide some perspective on the issue, it's estimated that more than a quarter of all British Columbia youth is either overweight or obese, those youth being defined as aged two to 17 — a quarter of us.

Recently the provincial health officer stated that each case of combined obesity, physical inactivity and smoking adds close to $2 billion a year to the cost of running British Columbia's health system. So aside from the human cost of ill health involved, there are huge fiscal consequences for the government, and that's partly why we're here.

To date our consultations have focused on the so-called experts — doctors, dietitians, food industry professionals — and we've received a considerable volume of comments on our website, which I hope some of you would have time to take a glance at. The website is myhealthyspace.ca, and we have some blogs that we're operating there. You can submit your opinions in blog format. We have a questionnaire. There's a cute little video that might amuse you. So I'd commend you to log on to myhealthyspace.ca and communicate to us that way, in addition to what we are going to hear this afternoon.

As you are well aware from your social studies classes, parliamentary committees and politicians tend to be quite stuffy and rule oriented and, frankly, a little bit out of touch. We spend a lot of time in Victoria, which is hardly the centre of the real world, and it's definitely not youth friendly. So that's why we're here: to hear from youth. We want our consultation with you to be as painless as possible. There's nothing very formal about this conversation we hope to have in this dialogue with you on obesity.

As you see in front of you, we have a lot of technical equipment that our technicians have brought with us on the airplane this morning. We are recording this session and broadcasting the meeting live over the Internet. As we speak, those millions of people tuning in, in places in Asia and Africa, are waiting for your next words.

When you speak, for that reason we would ask you to identify yourself by name. If you do speak on the record, we would ask you to check in with Jonathan at the back of the room to ensure that we've got the spelling of your name correct. A transcript of the meeting will be prepared and posted on the committees website. A printed record of the proceedings, as with all parliamentary committee proceedings, will be forthcoming, and your golden words will be enshrined forever in the proceedings of this parliament in Victoria. That's something, I think, to be proud of. You can show it to your grandchildren.

I would like to now ask the members of the Legislature who constitute this committee to introduce themselves.

M. Sather: Michael Sather. I'm the MLA for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows. If you don't know where that is, it's just out of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley.

V. Roddick: I'm Valerie Roddick. I'm the MLA for Delta South, which is the Ladner-Tsawwassen area, where you catch the B.C. ferry to Vancouver Island.

C. Wyse: I'm Charlie Wyse. I'm the MLA for Cariboo South. I live in Williams Lake. Thanks for having me.

K. Conroy: I'm Katrine Conroy. I'm the MLA for West Kootenay–Boundary. It's over in the Kootenays. I live in Castlegar. It's also the hometown of your principal. If you want any stories later, maybe I might have some.

K. Whittred: I'm Katherine Whittred. I'm the MLA for North Vancouver–Lonsdale. North Vancouver–Lonsdale is right across Burrard Inlet from downtown Vancouver.

R. Sultan (Chair): As I've already said, I'm Ralph Sultan, the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano, on the North Shore opposite the city of Vancouver.

Also joining us today are Kate Ryan-Lloyd, our Committee Clerk; our research analyst, Jonathan Fershau, who is at the back of the room; Carla Shore, who is in charge of media liaison for the committee, in the back row there. On Hansard Services staff, recording our proceedings, are Mike Leblond and Andrew Costa, who are fiddling with all the computers back there. They are doing what is necessary to prepare a written transcript as well as the streaming audio of this meeting over the Internet.

With those preliminaries out of the way, I understand you have prepared a presentation for us. We're going to stop talking and turn the meeting over to you. I would like to turn the meeting over to Kristyn Stobbe, who I've been told will really act as MC from here on in. Then at the end of all your presentations, I would hope we might have time for just some questions and answers.

K. Stobbe: Good afternoon. My name is Kristyn, and I am a member of the Carihi peer support class. On behalf of staff and students at Carihi Secondary School, I would like to welcome you to our school.

We have prepared a presentation based on our school's healthy atmosphere. We have a video and PowerPoint presentation, followed by a group of students who will be talking about Carihi's health awareness. There will then be a question-and-answer period. We hope that you have a great afternoon at our school.

I would like to begin by introducing Erica Benson and Rachel Kerr, who are active in both peer support and our media program. They have prepared a video clip for you.

R. Sultan (Chair): For the record, could you repeat their names and which grades you're in.

E. Benson: I'm Erica Benson, and we've prepared you a short video so you can see what CaHi is all about.

K. Stobbe: Next we have Brandi and Megan to tell you about a survey that we gave to our school to find out their thoughts on the state of our health.

R. Sultan (Chair): Perhaps you could state your names and what grade you're in.

K. Stobbe: The next group of students took a look at all the things that Carihi does to promote health. Here are Danika, Emily, Georgia and Chloe.

E. Maclean: We would like to take a few minutes to tell you about the ways we've discovered that Carihi promotes health.

D. Solhjell: We have five vending machines in our school. They contain a mix of items that are not particularly healthy and some that are more health conscious. We do not find out which of these items sell the most, but we did know that over the past few years the selection of more health-conscious items has increased.

There are a few statistics that we have collected on what is available at Carihi. In the snack vending machine 30 percent are healthy choices; 73 percent are chips. This includes the healthy and non-healthy choices. Some 17 percent is chocolate, and 3 percent is other candy. The healthy choices are marked with a heart sticker that is visible to the buyer.

In the beverage vending machine 20 percent is water, 24 percent is Coca-Cola, 36 percent is other pop beverages, 11 percent is apple juice, and 9 percent is Gatorade.

In the other beverage vending machine 40 percent is juice, and 60 percent is flavoured milk. In the water vending machine 55 percent is water; 45 percent is pop.

Most of the pops in the school range from $1.25 to $2. Candy and chips are $1 to $1.50. Water is $1.75.

In the cafeteria. While our cafeteria does sell poutine once a week, it also provides healthy options,

such as a healthy entrée and a choice of salads. There is also a soup offered each day. Mr. Bauchman, our cafeteria teacher, tells us that the cheeseburger is the biggest seller, but if the students want more health-conscious options, then they would buy them if you provide them.

G. Chadwick: Carihi has many extracurricular sport teams. We have basketball, volleyball, soccer, swimming, wrestling, cross-country running and golf. These sports depend on the seasons, and they are offered before or after school. Students are part of a team, and they travel to tournaments.

Our leadership class plans intramural sports for us to participate in. Currently they organize volleyball, which would be played at lunch in the gym. Our lunchtime is only 35 minutes, so that can make it difficult for much to be done. They are for fun, so students can get together with their friends and play sports.

E. Maclean: Our planning 10 class has a five-week health component, and all grade 10 students must take this. A main focus of this class is wellness. We study nutrition, stress, health concerns and positive lifestyles. During this class one of our portfolio assignments consists of an analysis of our diets and how we can make them healthier.

Healthy lunches. We walked around the school observing our fellow students eating, and we saw lots of healthy food, so we took pictures. Our first nations room provides bagels and peanut butter and fruit for kids who do not have lunch. Student services has juice boxes and granola bars for kids too.

G. Chadwick: We are very proud today that, for the first time, we are a smoke-free campus this year. For many years staff have discussed the issues of smoking on the school grounds. Last year students took a stand against it. While we listened to the concerns of our fellow students who are addicted to nicotine, we did a survey of students and our school is very much in favour of having no smoke pit.

Our counsellors offer a kick-the-nic class each year. Several students signed up to take this program that runs for several weeks in the spring.

D. Solhjell: Morning fitness. The fitness equipment in the mezzanine is open to students and staff at 7:30 a.m. This is done in the morning to work out. Many of our athletes use this as part of their training.

E. Maclean: PE classes. We have many students who take PE in our school. We have a variety of PE classes. We have regular PE. We also have specific sports phys ed classes. We have basketball for grade 10s, senior basketball, volleyball, girls soccer and boys soccer. These classes are made up of both genders and students from all three grades. The classes are very competitive and run similar to varsity practices.

We have some statistics we collected about the number of students in PE classes. In the basketball classes there are 25 juniors and 28 seniors, and these are all boys. In regular PE classes for grades 11 to 12, there are four classes — one with 30, another with 22, one with 25 and one with 21.

In soccer classes there are 26 boys and 22 girls. This is from grades 10 to 12. In volleyball PE there are 29 students, and 14 of them are in grade 10. In conditioning PE there are three classes: 27, 29 and 28. There are 19 students in grade 10, and 65 of them are grades 11 and 12. Also, grade 10 PE is a required course. Further physical education is optional.

We also have a new class called conditioning PE. I would like to ask Chloe to tell us about this class in more detail.

C. Girard: Hi, my name is Chloe Girard, and I'm in grade 12. I'm here to talk about the conditioning PE class that we have now at Carihi. Conditioning PE is a program that started up last year, but not until this year has it become more of a program than a class. It was created specifically for students who want to improve their personal fitness on their own level as opposed to all kids in one class working at the same pace.

You are not marked in comparison to the other students but on your own personal best. A daily schedule is actually made for the class for each week. On Monday we participate in team sports, either handball or indoor soccer depending on the weather. Sometimes we play football. On Tuesdays we work in the gym we have now. It's called the "mez." We have weight equipment and a treadmill, bicycles, yoga balls — everything that a gym has. On Wednesdays we have a weekly run that you can do at your own pace. There is a 5K run, a 7K or 8K and a 10K, so depending on how far you think you can run, you pick a time.

Then on Thursdays we have another — just like Tuesdays…. We work out in the gym. We have charts. The boys and the girls have separate charts of what exercises they're to do and on what machines. The guys, for each exercise, do three sets of eight reps, and the girls do two sets of 15 reps per exercise. The guys work more on their chests and their backs, and the girls work more on their butts and their legs. The reason for the guys doing three sets of eight reps is to build more muscle as opposed to the girls — to lose the excess weight in the legs and the butt region.

I think that conditioning PE is quite an improvement compared to team sports because kids that aren't interested…. In grade 10 if you have to take PE and you don't like playing basketball, you're most likely to just walk around the court while the other kids play. In conditioning PE, if a kid doesn't want to play a team sport on our team sports days, Mondays and Fridays, they're allowed to go for a run or work out in the gym — go on the treadmill or the bike. So it's really your own personal preference.

K. Stobbe: Once we looked at what it is that we do, our peer support class brainstormed some ideas that we could work on to promote health in our school. I

would like to introduce Kirsty, Laura, Megan and Mack to talk about some of those ideas.

K. Graham: We were asked to come up with a list of healthy plans that we could put in place to change our school for the better. This is our vending machine of healthy choices. Laura will talk about the cafeteria plan.

L. Barkley: Our cafeteria plan is to make tastier, healthier food so that people will come and eat it more because it will be tasty; make it affordable for people so they can have it whenever they want; and make the eating area trendy, so maybe we'd get students in the school to paint the walls or something.

K. Graham: As you've probably noticed, vending machines contribute to the obesity of our youth. We thought that if we offered more healthy food than junk food, rather than…. Right now we offer a couple of healthy choices hidden behind all the junk. If we lowered the prices of the health food choices…. Right now it's like a dollar for a granola bar, and that's a bit much, if you ask me. We've already put healthy choices on the top row so that they're noticeable, rather than hiding them at the bottom of the machines.

L. Barkley: So we're going to have healthier lifestyle choices and clubs, like a walking club. Maybe we'd offer some other clubs after school like self-defence, yoga and maybe some dance classes. That's about it.

K. Graham: We thought we should also pay attention to what the students are drinking. Right now we have water fountains, which are our source of free water and everything, but they're kind of gross as they are. Students don't really like to drink out of them. At the middle school here in town, at Phoenix, they have water coolers in the hallway so that students can go and fill up their water bottles. My brother doesn't even drink water from home anymore. He goes and fills up his water bottle in the washroom.

We also thought that advertising healthy eating would be a good way to encourage it, but handmade posters like this…. Students don't always take the time to look at them. So if we can have professional posters advertising healthy eating habits, but also have posters against eating disorders because that can also become a problem when we start talking about obesity.

M. Thompson: I'm Mack Thompson, and I'm in grade 11. When our peer support class began looking at health in our school group to promote health awareness in our school, we brainstormed ideas and will work over the next moth to see this plan into action. Here are some of our ideas.

Veggie bingo is an activity that we can hold during the week at lunch, in which the bingo revolves around healthy items that we eat every day in our lives. At the end of each round, a prize will be given to each winner.

Healthy choice all week in the cafeteria. During this week our school cafeteria would cook more health-conscious items.

Our healthy treasure hunt. Throughout the week vegetable-shaped items would be scattered about the school. At the end of the week whoever has the most items would win a prize.

The walking club would be before and after school for those students who do not like vigorous activity, which would show that walking is a good exercise and that by walking with a group of people, a person can have a good time with a friend while being healthy.

Lunchtime aerobics, where we have a professional instructor come to our school and run classes in the gym.

For the week we would have interesting health facts on our announcement wheel with our daily announcements all day long on TVs in each classroom.

Our final idea for the health week would be a recipe contest to see who could come up with the healthiest recipe and win a free meal in our cafeteria. That's our health week.

K. Stobbe: I would like to inform you that the Carihi student government is working on a water project. Our goals are to get students drinking more water and to get the water quality improved.

Next we have Brandi to tell you about a survey that we gave to our school to find out their thoughts on the state of our health.

B. Jeune: All right. When we were first told about your visit to our school today, peer support students all logged on and visited the website myhealthyspace.ca, and we did the survey provided on the website. After a close discussion about the survey on the site, we decided to develop our own survey and make it especially for Carihi. We administered it to every class in the school and collected the results. We will give you a copy of the survey that we gave to our school.

M. Ralph: The slides are very self-explanatory. They simply show the questions from the survey and the tabulated results. From the first question you can see that Carihi students considered themselves to be very healthy.

B. Jeune: Well, it looks good, but 71 percent of our students consider themselves to be physically fit. It's

also good to look at the other side. This statistic tells us that almost one-third of our students do not think they are fit.

M. Ralph: I think this next slide is interesting. Only about half of our students get enough fruit and vegetables, and the same number do not really understand the nutritional content of their food. A third of the students at Carihi eat too much junk food, maybe the same ones who are not physically fit. I do not know for sure, but the statistics are the same.

I know it can be hard to drink all of the water we need in a day, and it would seem that almost half of our school agrees with me. As we will learn, water is a continuous issue in our school.

B. Jeune: From this, you can see that most of our students take or will take a PE course after the compulsory PE 10. This may be partly due to the graduation portfolio requirements of 80 hours of fitness following the end of grade 10. We did not compare the number to the number of students taking PE 11 or 12 in past years. One contributing factor of the high numbers of senior physical education classes could be the variety of PE that is offered at Carihi. Again, you will hear more about this in a moment.

M. Ralph: This statistic is a good one: three-quarters of kids at Carihi are involved in sports outside of our school, as you can see from the next slide.

B. Jeune: Most of this is actually team sports. The big ones in Campbell River are hockey, soccer, volleyball and basketball. We are close to Mount Washington and also have students involved in skiing and snowboarding. Many of our students also take a variety of dance classes.

M. Ralph: This information is very interesting. We are not sure what our students want with this one. When we first obtained this information, we met with Mr. Bauchman, our cafeteria teacher, to let him know what the students said. Mr. Bauchman pointed out that there are always two types of salads on the cafeteria menu. His main meal is always calorie- and fat-conscious. They consist of at least two vegetables, rice and meat that does not have a sauce. He explained that he has tried our healthier options, but they do not sell. He is very happy to offer more health-conscious selections and would like to work with us to promote that.

B. Jeune: Our school is split when concerned with the promotion of health. One-half say that we are doing a good job of creating a health-conscious environment, while others say that we could be doing a better job. This gives us a lot of room to work with.

M. Ralph: These are the top eight answers to the question of how we promote health: healthier, cheaper foods in the vending machines; PE classes; no more smoking; healthy foods in the cafeteria; Carihi doesn't promote health; sports teams; planning 10; weight room and gym.

B. Jeune: The last question looks at some of the suggestions our students made to make our school a healthier place. Before I turn this over to the next presenter, I want to thank another classmate, Stephanie Eastland, for spending hours tabulating the survey results — over 700 of them — for making this PowerPoint presentation for us to use. That's all we have to say.

K. Stobbe: Thank you for taking the time to listen to our presentation about health awareness at Carihi. At this time we would like to accept any comments or questions you may have for us.

R. Sultan (Chair): Well, that was simply magnificent, and I would think that it does prompt many questions on the part of the committee. We have tended to just go round-robin around the table, so if it's agreeable to the committee members, I might start with Katherine Whittred and work through to Katrine, etc.

K. Whittred: Yes. I, too, want to congratulate the students. I think you did a wonderful job, and I was impressed with the level of analysis that the group had put in to the survey, in particular. You have actually looked at some of the outcomes of that pretty critically.

I had a couple of questions. I'm trying to remember who mentioned this. I think it was the group that was giving the presentation around the picture of the activities in the school. You mentioned the intramural program and the 35-minute lunch-hour.

My question to you…. I was a teacher in my other life, and I can remember, as we kept making lunch-hours shorter and shorter, the intramural program got smaller and smaller. I was going to ask you: have you spoken to your administration? Is it a concern to you? Would you like to see a longer lunch-hour so you could have a more comprehensive intramural program?

R. Sultan (Chair): When you respond, could you identify yourself, please, for Hansard.

I don't know how much our participation in intramurals actually revolves around the length of the lunch hour. I think right now it revolves around kids wanting to do more socializing at lunch and not thinking about doing the sports as much. As far as the length goes, I don't know what we could do to change that, really, because of the class lengths, but that's probably something that someone from the administration could answer.

K. Whittred: All right, thank you. I had another question around the mez. I think somebody mentioned that the mez is available to athletes in the morning

starting at about 7:30. My question was: is that only for people who are on teams, or is that for the general school population? I gather the fitness equipment is in the mez — right?

A. Robertson: Yes. I believe what they're doing right now is that if you go in and you take the time to work with a teacher to learn about it, you're allowed to use it. They've opened it to not only the conditioning PE classes but to everyone if they'd like to use it.

K. Whittred: Okay, good. And just a comment: I was really interested in your conditioning phys ed program. I think that's a really good option, and I hope that some other schools pick up on that.

My final question for you was around the survey and the healthy meal. It sounded like your cafeteria class has actually done quite a bit in terms of trying to offer healthy alternatives, but people tend to choose a different alternative. Would you people who are on the committee advocate taking away the unhealthy choices, in other words taking the burger and fries off the menu and leaving only the healthy choice available?

B. Jeune: I'm Brandi Jeune, and I think we could do that, but it wouldn't be as effective as it sounds because, as a high school, lots of us can drive. We'd just drive to get it, so it's really the willpower of the person. If they want a burger, they're going to have a burger. It would be nice to be promoting healthy food so that people who don't feel like driving can only buy healthy things.

R. Sultan (Chair): If I could interject, this is a very interesting question, and I wonder if others in the audience who are not part of the presentation team might want to express an opinion on the very same question that Katherine posed. Does anybody else have a view on just total ban on the sort of food, and would that really be effective? Could you stand up and give your name, please.

N. Guthrie: Hello, my name is Nick Guthrie. I was a teacher at Vanier high school for 20 years. On this particular item, the original cafeteria teacher priced the junk food very high and the healthy choices very low. A good-sized salad would be ten, 15 or 25 cents, and the sugary, fatty stuff would be way above what clearly was normal price. He was using his energies to force people towards making choices, especially if they had limited money.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear any of the presentation because we don't have a speaker back here and my hearing isn't up to much. I don't know if these folks have had this as a suggestion, they may have, but it worked back there. I can remember seeing it work. Thank you.

R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you. I believe we have a student with a response over here.

K. Graham: I'm Kirsty Graham. In reality, the most money we make is off hamburgers and poutine on Wednesdays. Those are our profit days. I'm not sure that they'd be completely willing to get rid of them because we make so much money off of it. If we could make the healthy food really popular, then it would work. But we'd have to raise the price so much that people would slow down buying it before we took it off the menu altogether.

K. Whittred: I think that's very interesting. I guess just my final comment on that line of questioning was that you mentioned that Wednesday is your hamburger and fries day. I have been in schools where that was served one day a week. Really, if you do the nutritional analysis, I think most nutritionists will say that you can work that kind of menu in occasionally. You don't want it every day.

My final question to the committee would be: have you spoken to your cafeteria teacher in terms of the nutrition over a weekly time frame, rather than just a daily choice?

A. Robertson: As we vaguely said in the survey, I think a lot of students just aren't aware that there are nutritional options in the cafeteria right now. If Mr. Bauchman, our cafeteria teacher, was to tell you this, he'd probably say there are the options. It's just that the kids choose not to take them. Poutine day is only once a week, and I think hamburgers are served only once a week. But I'm not really sure about that.

W. Westbrook: My name is Whitney Westbrook, and I don't think it's fair to say that the cafeteria doesn't have healthy choices. We have Caesar salads, Thai salads and a whole bunch of different things. Hamburger may be our bestseller. I don't think it's fair to say we don't have healthy choices.

R. Sultan (Chair): I believe we had one or two adults over on this side of the room who wanted to participate in these questions.

K. Whittred: Excuse me, Chair. Could I just respond to that? I did understand that from the presentations — that your cafeteria does offer healthy choices. I was just following a line on the number of alternatives available.

P. Walker: My name is Pam Walker. I'm the PAC chair here. My comment is just that there's an awful lot of reference to healthy choices. It makes the food sound very boring. What about exciting food? Healthy food can be fabulous, but it doesn't consist of only salads.

I think that's something that, at least to my ears, is being missed here. There are so many fabulous, exciting kinds of food that can be offered that the kids won't even know they're eating healthy food and won't want the hamburgers, because there's so much else that is much more interesting to the taste buds. I really think that's an aspect that hasn't been addressed.

N. Lawrence: My name is Nancy Lawrence, and I teach home ec in Courtenay. I heard about the forum on the radio and was interested to hear what you had to say. Part of what you're talking about, totally banning junk food in the schools…. That's only one meal a day, five days a week. I think it's more to do with inactivity than with excess food, and also the choices that they're making. I think education is probably the biggest thing to do.

A lot of times, some of the things I choose for the kids to try after a demonstration…. During the demonstration they're going: "I don't want to try that." Once they've tried it, they really like it. Like you're saying, there are lots of ways to introduce healthy food without them even knowing it. For sure, education is a huge part.

K. Conroy: I just want to thank the people that presented. It was a really well-thought-out, thorough presentation from a number of different aspects. It was great.

I have a couple of questions. With the video, when you did the production, was it just randomly picking students across the school so it represents a fairly good cross-section of the students across the whole high school?

R. Kerr: We didn't have very long to put our video together. We only had about two lunch hours to do the entire interview aspect of it. We tried to get students in the cafeteria, ones buying food at the stores down the street and students just eating lunch. We tried to get a fairly equal amount of kids throughout the school.

K. Conroy: It was well done. Also, 700 responses to a survey is phenomenal. You don't usually get that many responses to surveys. That's really well done. Your numbers are very, very credible, and it's neat to see that.

I think hamburgers are getting a bad rap here, because you can get a healthy hamburger. I think we can all eat hamburgers, but I think the key here is making sure we get the exercise that goes with the eating.

It looks like you're trying to implement a lot of different types of physical activities into the school, with your conditioning PE class and some of the other things you're trying to do. But is there much opportunity for activities out of the school, like in after-school activities? Do you have much opportunity to get involved in different kinds of sports? Is it readily accessible for you? What kind of activities do you get involved in?

A. Robertson: You mean outside of the school — right? Not within the school programs? Well, I know in the community there are a lot of soccer players, and there are a lot of girls who dance. Me, personally — I play softball in the spring. I think that the community offers a lot of sports as well. And then there are kids who just prefer to work out, and they'll go to a gym. So, yeah, I think outside the school there's a lot of opportunity for sports. As well, basketball, volleyball and wrestling are done through the school. So, yeah, there's a lot of opportunity.

The reason we got so many results for the survey, I think, was because we actually did it in class time. We took it and gave it to them in classes and collected it in the same class.

C. Wyse: Again, I'm very impressed with the presentation. One of the things, as you're down on the list…. A number of questions have already been asked. Could I get some more information about your school? It will help me understand. Are many of your students bus students?

B. Jeune: I'd say that many of our students take the bus or some kind of…. I personally take the public transit bus here. We have students coming from both Quadra Island and Sayward that get bused in.

C. Wyse: One of my questions I'm going to give you in a moment, but I have learned an awful lot, and you have helped me learn some more. One of the things I'd like to share with you is that I was absolutely amazed at how much sugar I found existed in fruit juice. I used to think that going to get myself a can of fruit juice was a great, healthy thing to do. Then I found out I was actually eating tablespoons full of sugar.

My question is: do you figure that your classmates know which food is a healthier choice?

B. Jeune: I think a lot of things are promoted as healthy that are maybe not so healthy. For example, in our vending machines, like you said, fruit juices are promoted as the healthier choice from pop or something. But it's not necessarily a healthy choice. So I think that, yeah, our students know fruit juice isn't exactly as healthy as water per se.

I don't think we have a lot of information as of school. I think if we really wanted to educate ourselves, we could, because of resources outside of school, like the Internet and stuff like that; but as of school, no.

C. Wyse: I have a couple more questions. Did I hear correctly the information that you were sharing with me that a bottle of water was more than a can of pop?

B. Jeune: No, it's the same as pop. A bottle of water is more expensive than fruit juice, like apple juice or orange juice.

C. Wyse: What is your general reaction that a bottle of water has the same cost to it as, say, a can of pop? Does that encourage healthier choices?

A. Robertson: If I had $1.25…. That's how much it costs to get a can of pop at our school. But it's also the same amount to get a bottle of water — this much water. Personally, I usually opt for the water, because it'll quench my thirst. But I think a lot of people…. If they are going for a healthy choice, they might go for the can of juice, which is a dollar — just like the 25 cents difference.

C. Wyse: A question. I may be repeating it, but I would appreciate some help. Does your community do things to encourage increased activity different than what we've heard? We've heard there are various things like hockey and recreational activities of that nature. Can you think of any other things from the community that may increase activity for kids of school age to be doing?

B. Jeune: I think if there was a will to go do it, then we'd have the resources available. There is the sportsplex, which I'm sure has lots of different programs that you could go into for different physical things. I think it's more or less the committing to it or actually doing it. I'm sure there are lots of things we could do. It's the fact that we're not doing it.

C. Wyse: Are there things like walkways, things of that nature? For example, when I was here, I went out to get a bottle of water, and I found a pathway that took me off the school grounds to where I could find a store. Things of that nature. Things that help direct me towards being physically active, like walkways.

A. Robertson: There are a lot of hiking trails and walkways. A big one that people like to walk on in our town is the sea walk down in Willow Point. It's right along the water, along the highway. It's great for biking and rollerblading and walking in general.

The community does offer a lot of programs. They have catalogues full of stuff. There are yoga and exercise programs, all designated for youth. But I think a lot of it is choice, and if the youth don't choose to go, then even if it's provided, it's not going to do anything.

R. Kerr: I think the community does a pretty excellent job of providing options. I take a yoga class, and there are many sports. There are lots of gyms to go to. There's the sea walk. There are lots of trails. There are always things you can do better, but there aren't that many things that need to be improved amongst the community.

It's more school for kids who maybe can't afford to take classes or join a gym. I think the community isn't really something that needs to be focused on as much as things inside of school and things that can be provided free of cost or for little cost to the students.

V. Roddick: I, too, would just like to add my compliments for the video and this brilliant survey and all the other input you have done. It really is first-class. I have always thought that in this funny business we're all in called politics, when you go and have all-candidates meetings — they're usually during elections — they're usually stacked, except if you go to a high school. They always are succinct. They have the best questions, and that's what you've done here today. I just want to add my thanks.

I do have one comment and one question or a theme that I will follow in the next schools that we go to. First of all, the comment, which is the juice. It's semantics, words, descriptions. There is the 100-percent juice, then there's cocktail, or then there's drink. You have to read all the teensy print. If you get 100-percent juice, the sugar is relatively natural, and it's just a question of how much. I think that's sort of part and parcel of all our eating habits and our sports and everything else. It's a question of how much quantity and quality.

What I wanted to ask was about your lunch break. Is your 35-minute lunch break consistent every day? Is it always at the same time, and is it always 35 minutes?

A. Robertson: Our lunch break is always at the same time. The bell to end the second class is at 11:25, and then the first bell to go to class, I believe, is 12:05. So yeah, 35 minutes.

V. Roddick: Okay. At the school that we came from, it seemed to change. In fact, today they had another whole block, and their lunch didn't start till 1:30, which really made me think that it's not really…. You're going to graze all day, then, if you're not going to have a chance to actually physically have lunch.

I sort of noticed a couple of guys in the thing, especially the one with the cigarette, who didn't eat lunch. Is there a lot of grazing? I'm using the term. You understanding what I mean by grazing, hopefully. In other words, you just eat little bits out of a vending machine or whatever all day, and you don't actually seriously have a breakfast or lunch.

A. Robertson: I think a lot of that does go on with a lot of kids. Maybe their parents are at the stage where they don't make their lunch anymore. They expect the children to do it, and the kids don't do it, so they don't bother. So I think a lot of the time, yes, that a lot of snacking goes on.

I know what I do and what a lot of other people do. I have meetings pretty well every lunchtime, so I'll pack a healthy lunch. Then I'll eat my lunch throughout the day. But it's not like I'm going to get stuff from the vending machines. I think that's healthy. It's just that when people are grazing on the vending machines or up at the store, it's not healthy.

K. Graham: I always find enough time to eat my lunch. I'm sure a lot of people who don't eat their lunches…. It's something they don't feel like they need to. Like, they can go get a bag of chips or something. But if we made the lunch break longer — like, to an

hour — people would have the time to walk downtown. Downtown we have Taco Del Mar, KFC and all these different restaurants. So sure, they'd be eating lunch, but would it be the right lunch to be eating?

K. Stobbe: If I could add something to that. I think that a lot of students are focusing more on socializing during lunch, because it's a break out of their class. They're not sitting in a seat, listening to a teacher talk and learning, so they want to be with their friends rather than spending the lunchtime eating.

There is an area provided for us to sit down, but the majority of people don't use it. I think that's another thing that happens. People are walking around. They're standing and talking, so they're not feeling like they can actually sit down and eat.

M. Sather: I wanted to add my observations about the quality of your survey and the work being done. It's just excellent.

You've mentioned water a number of times in your talk. I think you made reference to there being a problem with your water. Did I understand that right? What's the problem?

K. Stobbe: Well, a lot of the students find that the water quality at Carihi isn't very good. The condition of our water fountains isn't exactly the best. They're not willing to pay $1.25 for a bottle of water, so there isn't as much water being consumed as there could be if our water had better taste or was a little bit cool The majority of the time it's pretty warm, and it doesn't come out of the fountains very well.

R. Kerr: I think it was a biology class — I don't know if it was this year or near the end of last year — that did a study. They tested different areas like toilet seats and door handles. The water fountains contained the most bacteria out of any surface in the entire school — even toilets. So I don't want to be putting my mouth on something that's dirtier than an actual toilet.

There's a water cooler in the office for teachers, and I think a student should have the same luxury, though I don't think that clean water that is cleaner than a toilet should be considered a luxury in this day and age.

R. Sultan (Chair): We are beginning to crowd our other presenters' time and patience a little bit, and I'm wondering if I could suggest just a bit of a different format to wind up this presentation by the students of this wonderful school.

I was going to ask Jonathan — unprepared, unannounced…. I notice there are some guys in the back row who haven't really participated very much, so what I was going to suggest, if you're willing, Jonathan, is that you play Jay Leno. I want a one-sentence response from each of those fellows back there on what they would do and recommend. One sentence only — bang, bang, bang. Just go down the row, and tell us what they would do to solve the childhood obesity problem.

A. Robertson: I just wanted to tell you before they start going that they're all members of our cafeteria program, so they spend A and B block in the cafeteria preparing lunch for everyone — just in case you were wondering why they are wearing jackets.

A one-sentence answer from each of them, Jonathan. Maybe they can give their names.

S. Sam: I'm Scotti Sam, and I'm in the cafeteria class, obviously. I think that the salads should be cheaper or that something healthy be made a lot cheaper, so it's affordable by the students.

E. Faulkner: My name is Elijah Faulkner. I'm in grade 12, and I believe that we do the best we can for healthy choices in the cafeteria with the money and funds we have. If we were to use more healthy food, we wouldn't sell as much, and we wouldn't have the funds to keep the cafeteria running.

I. Blyleven: I think Elijah touched base on the same thing. The money we make off unhealthy choices helps us to keep the prices of healthy choices low.

B. Jorgensen: Hi, my name is Bryan Jorgensen. I would say the same thing as Isaac said about healthy stuff. We try to raise the money for that healthy food too.

I don't know if anybody wanted to make any windup comments. I'll turn it back to the mistress of ceremonies, if you want to conclude this presentation by the students.

K. Stobbe: We just wanted to say thank you for listening to us. We hope that you learned a bit about our school and what we do to be healthy.

Now, we have three presenters: Dr. Carl Ivey, Graham Lindenbach and Terryl Bertagnolli of the B.C. Cancer Agency. Could I suggest we take a three-minute recess, and then we will resume and hear from Dr. Carl Ivey.

R. Sultan (Chair): We are now going to have a change of pace. Instead of Carihi High being the focus of our attention, we're going to hear from others in the community who are concerned about this important public health issue. We will begin with testimony from Dr. Carl Ivey. Dr. Ivey will tell us a little bit about himself and who he is and why he's here, and then he'll proceed to give his presentation.

I think we'll have time to ask Dr. Ivey questions, although I've been cautioned by my fellow committee members to be a little bit more tough-minded in limiting them to one question each and one follow-up question — or one supplementary, as we say in the Legislature. Then we'll proceed to Mr. Lindenbach and Mr. Bertagnolli.

C. Ivey: Thank you. My name is Carl Ivey. I recently retired from practising pediatrics for over 30 years in the United States. As of two weeks ago I became a landed immigrant, officially. So I'm official now as a landed immigrant in Canada.

My passion as a practising pediatrician has always been wellness and prevention. So I was out of the box even before I was aware that I was out of the box. I was practising what is now known as holistic medicine, which is my true passion.

As of December 2004 I was able to retire from practising pediatrics, and since that time, I have launched a new career as a full-time motivational speaker, parenting coach and healthy-nutrition advocate. I feel very blessed to now be in Canada and able to follow my true life's passion.

Today a great paradox exists in the U.S. and Canada and in most of the western industrialized nations. People are becoming more and more overweight with the consumption of ever-increasing amounts of calorie-dense processed foods, while at the same time people are becoming more and more nutritionally starved at both the cellular and biochemical levels. It's akin to dying of thirst in the middle of the ocean.

Recent statistics show that 66 percent, or two-thirds, of U.S. adults are overweight, that 33 percent or one out of three adult Americans is obese and that 14 percent of kids are overweight. The rate of increase among kids is the frightening part.

We're now seeing younger and younger kids developing what we call type 2 diabetes, which is largely associated with excessive weight and obesity. Type 2 diabetes was formerly called adult-onset diabetes because it was primarily a problem afflicting older adults — middle-aged, 40, 50 and 60 — and most of these were overweight. But now we're seeing this condition in younger and younger kids.

Hippocrates, who was commonly referred to as the father of western medicine, said over 2,000 years ago that "medicine be thy food, and food thy medicine." We need to rediscover the wisdom and truth of what Hippocrates said two millennia ago.

Knowledge is essential in terms of successfully tackling any problem. I think it is incumbent upon all of us to become more and more familiar with such terms as diseases of affluence; antioxidants; free radicals; the glycemic index of foods; probiotics; disbiosis; BMI, which refers to the body mass index; metabolic syndrome; the medical risks associated with increased abdominal fat; and homocystine levels.

I consider it a perfect storm that has occurred in the last 25 to 30 years, which relates to (1) the widespread availability of relatively inexpensive, convenient, processed fast food; (2) the decreased activity in general and the elimination of regular exercise or curtailment of regular exercise programs in many schools; (3) increased time in sedentary activities such as watching TV, playing video games and looking at computer screens, where the only physical exercise is squeezing a control handle or clicking a mouse; and (4) increased environmental pollution, poor air quality, pesticides, contaminants, toxins in our food and drinking water.

The epidemic of child and adult obesity is accompanied by epidemic rates of chronic diseases — heart disease, arthritis, asthma, allergies, diabetes, eczema and hypertension. But it's interesting to note that many people still ascribe these chronic conditions to simply getting older, which is not true at all. It's simply a matter of getting unhealthy. I see more and more unhealthy young people in their teens, 20s and 30s.

What do these conditions have in common — the chronic diseases that are afflicting our society, particularly western societies? The commonly accepted scientific paradigm is that all of these conditions, even though they appear to be disparate, are caused by excessive, uncontrolled inflammation in the body. What is the main cause of this inflammation? Most experts feel that it has to do with the food we eat.

The standard American diet is indeed SAD. That's the acronym for the standard American diet. The Canadian diet, for the most part, is very similar. In general, the typical western diet is a pro-inflammatory diet with lots of animal protein, saturated fats, trans fats, partially hydrogenated fats, refined sugar, processed foods, and too little of fresh fruits and vegetables and adequate fibre.

Our typical diets are severely lacking in antioxidants, which protect our cells and our DNA from harmful damage. It's lacking in vitamins and minerals, particularly magnesium. Magnesium deficiency, by the way, is epidemic and primarily related to the processing of whole grains, where the outer part of the grain is removed. That's where most of the magnesium resides. Chronic constipation is big business. It reflects the lack of fibre, both soluble and insoluble fibre, in the typical western diet.

On the contrary, healthy diets, which consist basically of plant-based foods, whole grains, complex carbohydrates like nuts, seeds, beans, fish oil — salmon, sardines, tuna — and healthy fats, are basically anti-inflammatory. It's interesting that the anti-inflammatory effects of health diets have no side effects.

I'm going to make a comment about milk, and then you can draw your own conclusions. It has been found

that cow's milk and dairy products are known to be very pro-inflammatory. A recent article written by the American Academy of Pediatrics advised parents not to offer cow's milk to any child under two years of age. This is pretty strong advice from a historically very conservative organization. There's a website I will refer you to. It's known as milksucks.com, and you can avail yourself of that information there. It is a fact, however, that countries with the highest intake of cow's milk have the highest rates of bone thinning, bone fractures or what we call osteoporosis; and the countries with the least intake of cow's milk have the least amount of osteoporosis and fractures due to bone thinning.

Obesity is not the primary problem that we're dealing with here. It is merely one of the many symptoms of the underlying problems of unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, lifestyle choices in general, excessive stress, environmental pollution. The term "how to combat childhood obesity," which is one of the topics of this discussion, implies waging war. This is really to the old paradigm where it is believed — though it is not based on truth — that if there's a problem, we can attack the problem and therefore eliminate it.

Actually, when you attack a problem you create more of what you don't want. As long as we see childhood obesity or poor health as something to combat or wage war on, this will guarantee our failure. If you look at the war against drugs, the war against crime, the war against terrorism, the war against cancer, the war against poverty…. They've all been dismal failures, with more and more money being spent with less and less results. A glaring example is that the prison population in the U.S. — which is known as a growth industry, by the way — was less than 300,000 in 1980. In 2004 the prison population in the U.S. had increased to over 2.1 million. Punishment doesn't work because it doesn't deal with the underlying causes of the criminal's behaviour.

My experience as a practising pediatrician for over 30 years — and I dealt with a lot of child/teen behaviour problems…. I am convinced from my experience, and more and more studies are confirming this, that the worst-behaved kids and teens — the kids who are troublemakers, the bullies, those failing academically — are the same kids who are punished the most. If you really look at the violence in kids, you will see that it correlates with the severity of the punishment. The more extreme the punishment that these kids experience, the more they tend to act violently.

David L. Katz, MD, director of Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center in New Haven, Connecticut, feels that we don't pay enough attention to what our kids are eating. He also reveals evidence that this generation of kids is expected to have a shorter life span than their parents. This phenomenon, if it does come to pass, will be the first time in the history of mankind.

He feels that childhood obesity, ADD, ADHD, learning disabilities and many behaviour problems are related to poor diet, and I agree with him. In the Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2004, Dr. Katz states: "Children are more harmed by poor diet than by exposure to alcohol, drugs and tobacco combined." Some 50 percent of obese teens will remain obese as adults.

Obese people have increased inflammation simply because of their obesity, and every disease is more common and more accelerated and severe in overweight people. The latest studies show that obesity, particularly around the middle — the waist — acts like an endocrine gland. That fat is not inert, but it has active metabolic activities and causes all kinds of havoc in terms of the body healing itself and metabolizing in healthy ways.

The solution, then, is knowledge. Knowledge is power. We have to begin to read food labels. We need to avoid anything that says trans fats or partially hydrogenated fats. We need to avoid refined sugar, chips, candy, sugary cereals, soda pop, white bread, white flour. This doesn't mean that one has to become obsessive-compulsive, but if we make minor changes periodically, we will be pushed in the direction of healthy nutrition.

Once again I encourage you to check out milksucks.com regarding cow's milk. My family and I, as well as my daughters and my grandchildren, drink organic rice milk — no more cow's milk.

We need to increase the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables, which are loaded with natural phytochemicals, high amounts of fibre and antioxidants. Antioxidants are only found in plant foods. They are not found in animal foods. The antioxidants help to protect our cells from the inevitable production of what we call free radicals, which are the result of simply breathing oxygen.

We need to increase the amounts of the healthy fats in the diet. Basically, the problem with our bad diets is that we don't eat enough of the healthy fats, and we're getting too many of the bad fats or fats that have been damaged by heating and so forth. Healthy fats in what they call the omega-3 category include sardines, salmon, tuna, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, walnuts. We need more of what they call omega-6 fatty acids, which include raw, uncooked nuts, seeds and beans of all kinds.

Beans are an awesome food source. They do increase the tendency for flatus initially, but they have no cholesterol. They have an incredible amount of protein and fibre. It's interesting. Once you start eating more beans, the amount of flatus or gas will diminish as the bacteria in your bowel changes over.

We need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetable — organic, if possible. We need to limit the amount of animal protein — eggs, dairy and cheese. We need to drink clean water, but as you start eating more plant-based foods, you will derive a significant amount of your water needs from fresh fruits and vegetables.

Something else I should mention is that our soil, overall, is depleted because of farming practices, runoff from pesticides and so forth. I read in a recent article that one peach in 1950 had as much vitamin A as 20 peaches in 1994. That's why I advocate a daily multivitamin-mineral supplement for every person on the planet.

Some people, because of their genetic makeup, will require higher amounts of certain nutrients than others. I'd recommend a multivitamin-mineral supplement

with iron for kids and for those in the growing period and also for women who are in the menstruating period of life. I don't recommend additional iron in healthy adult males or in women who are post-menopausal.

We need to consider the use of probiotics which are healthy bacteria, particularly if you have chronic problems associated with what we call an excessively permeable bowel. The term "dysbiosis" you will become more and more familiar with as you seek better health. If you've been on a lot of antibiotics recently, if you smoke cigarettes or if you tend to drink alcohol excessively, a quality probiotic probably would serve you well.

Starvation diets do not work, although the people who are engaged in those industries don't want you to know that. In the U.S. over $30 billion is spent yearly on various diet plans, weight reduction and so forth. We need to begin to eat three meals a day. Breakfast is probably the single most important meal there is. I can almost predict who is overweight by finding the people who routinely skip breakfast.

We need to have healthy snacks available between meals. Once you start eating a healthy diet, the nature of healthy food — with its fibre and complex matrix — will satisfy you more than the quick-fix, fast-food type of stuff.

While I'm thinking of it, I'm going to make a statement that we need to begin to honour food more in this part of the world. The fact that you give the students 35 minutes to gobble down food…. That's less time than I had as a busy intern between seeing emergency-room patients. That's a travesty.

We cannot honour food without taking time to pay attention to our food. That's why we suffer from gastroesophageal reflux, heartburn and all types of problems. It's simply because we don't take the time and pay attention to eating not only as a physiologic process but as a spiritual process — honouring the food that we put into our bodies as we honour ourselves.

R. Sultan (Chair): Dr. Ivey, with one eye on the clock and the other presenters, could we ask you to proceed to your windup conclusions.

C. Ivey: In conclusion, there are a number of books that are available. I have three copies here. If you don't read another book for the rest of your life, I would recommend you read The China Study by Colin Campbell. You will approach food in a different way if you read this book. There is a wonderful organization in town called the CHIP program, the Coronary Health Improvement Program, for those who have chronic medical problems, are overweight, have had a heart attack or are working toward having a heart attack. You can check with them.

Lastly, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church is very keen on vegetarian eating and healthy eating. I've learned quite a bit from them, so you can check with them. As you check with these agencies you will be led to other sources of information, because information is there for those who are motivated to find it.

R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Dr. Ivey. That was a breathtaking tour of the world of wellness. Many of those ideas are very consistent with what we've been told by other experts in the field, such as yourself. We have a period of time here to pose questions to Dr. Ivey, should committee members wish.

M. Sather: I want to hear a little bit more from you about the concept that you can't deal with an issue by combatting it. You talked about the war on drugs and the war on various things and that being successful. That's an illustration of some of the examples. Can you say a little bit more about why it is, in your view, that by combatting the obesity problem, in our case, one is unlikely to have success?

C. Ivey: That's an excellent question, but we simply have to reframe how we're going to approach something. You cannot eliminate a problem by attempting to destroy it, but as Ghandi said: "We have to become the change that we want to see in the world." It's interesting if you read about Ghandi and the whole non-violent concept that when the British had colonized India, Britain was perhaps the most powerful nation on the planet. Yet Ghandi with his non-violent approach had the power. The British had the force, but power, which had to do with the consciousness base and rooted in love, always in the long term has more power than force.

Having been born in Alabama in 1945, I have experienced a world that now appears to be fantasy. The whole idea of black water fountains and white water fountains is foreign to most of you. It's foreign to my kids and will be even more foreign to my grandkids. I experienced that, and I'm very thankful I had those experiences in terms of what can happen when there is not violence but when there is love, because it's basically love or fear.

We have to begin to value health more, and then all the problems we don't want will disappear. We don't fight darkness by arguing against darkness. We simply turn on the light switch. Most of us are too concerned and too fearful. We're worried about getting sick when we should be focusing our attention and energy, because thoughts are energy, on being healthy. That's what I focus my energies on — just being healthy.

R. Sultan (Chair): Do other committee members have questions to ask Dr. Ivey?

M. Sather: Well, in that case…. You mentioned excessive inflammation in the body. Could you say a little bit more about what you mean by inflammation in the body? I know you're a doctor, so I'm sure you can explain that more completely.

C. Ivey: It's a fact that food has chemical properties, and as such, food exerts various chemical reactions to

the body. There are healthy reactions which allow us to break down complex foods into usable entities. But when things go overboard, when there's too much inflammation, then there can be problems.

You need a certain amount of inflammation or what we call balance. When we're not eating the right food, our bodies are not in a position optimally. It's like having a high-performance automobile and using kerosene, and you wonder why you can't accelerate or even get the car to run. I don't know much about cars, but that's the best analogy I can think of.

We need to start thinking of food as medicine, as Hippocrates said 2,000 years ago. Whatever you put in your body has an effect. It will not have a neutral effect. Ultimately, it's going to have either a healing effect or a disease-provoking effect.

That's the latest scientific paradigm. All of these diseases appear different, from arthritis and heart disease and even Alzheimer's. Then you get into the autoimmune diseases such as lupus, fibromyalgia, juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis — MS. They're all considered autoimmune, where the body ceases to recognize itself from something that's foreign and turns against itself.

The bottom line is inflammation. If we can begin to use foods now in healthy ways to greatly diminish the amount of inflammation in the body and allow our bodies to heal in healthy ways….

R. Sultan (Chair): Again, panel members, with an eye to the clock, I think…. We have two more presenters. We have a charter to get up to Fort St. John at some reasonable hour tonight, so I would suggest that if we have individual questions to ask Dr. Ivey, we can do it when we break.

R. Sultan (Chair): I would like to thank Dr. Ivey very much for what I found to be a very educational presentation, and I thank him for his passion in coming here to try and straighten out these poor bodies.

Now we have a presentation by Graham Lindenbach. I would ask Graham to explain who he is and why he's here, before he gets into his message to the committee.

G. Lindenbach: I'm Graham Lindenbach, and I have four kids in elementary school and one in junior high. I'm just a concerned citizen, although I have worked in the grocery industry for 25 years. I think I have a little bit of insight into the slide of our nation's health. Those are the things I've been making mental notes on as I see people make choices in their eating habits and also what is being sold in the stores today. It really concerns me how we're sliding down.

First of all, to the schools. I think we need better education for our kids to do with health and nutrition. There should be more education for the kids as they grow through elementary school — that they learn to make healthy choices. That should be taught almost as a subject. I think it's not given enough priority.

I don't think that the kids learn it. They might do a grocery store tour when they're young, in grade 1 or something. They do a little bit throughout the elementary years, but I don't feel they put enough emphasis on healthy choices — healthy lunches — and what they can learn from a healthy diet.

I think Canada's Food Guide is great, but I don't think the kids know what it says. Maybe that's a start — some type of classes to do with picking good lunches or meal planning or just instilling these things into the kids when they're young.

In high school I think that should continue. Obviously, they do home economics, but maybe it could be adjusted or improved to again emphasize healthy eating and proper diet.

Possibly science classes should have a unit on this. Instead of taking apart the flower or dissecting the frog or whatever, they should have a unit on the consequences of not eating healthily and what you're doing to your body when you don't make wise choices and things like that. I believe that the health and nutrition education could be improved in the school system.

An example of this. I heard my daughter talking to a friend at school. She was in a dance class. I don't know what kind of dance. They had brought in a nutritionist to speak to the kids about healthy eating habits because they felt this would really improve them as dance students. I just thought: wow, if a private dance studio is bringing in a nutritionist to help the kids, that's telling.

I guess the other thing is emphasis on PE and fitness. All of those could be improved in elementary school. I asked my kids' elementary school and the school trustee about a jogging trail for the kids, because I don't feel they get enough outside activity. They said that money had been spent in the budget for new computers, and there wasn't enough money to do that kind of thing.

Then he also said: "If we did have money, would it be better to buy more balls and more equipment for the kids or teach the teachers how to teach PE better?" He didn't know what would be best. I guess a jogging trail didn't seem to be a priority. It concerned me that the kids aren't getting outside long enough to actually get their heart rate up.

I don't know about the high school situation yet, because my daughter is just starting at high school. I know that when I was in high school, we had the option to do PE 12. PE 11 was mandatory. I saw that in your survey it said PE 10…. I don't know if they've now dropped that to PE 10 being the only mandatory PE class, but I think that's not the way to go.

I think that physical education should go right through. I know they do a portfolio at the end of school, and if PE is not a component, it should be. Maybe they should bring back Canada fitness in elementary school. How do we know if they're even as fit as they were 20 years ago when we did have Canada fitness? There's no standard anymore. I'm not sure where kids rate and if they can still do those activities that were in there. I know that's a competitive style of

PE, and that seems to be frowned upon, but I don't know how else you can set a standard if you don't have competitive….

Another thing I was involved with — I went to one meeting — was a group called active communities. I'm not sure if that was funded through the Olympics. Here is a group that was trying to promote active participation in communities. I asked if some representative from the school board was on this committee, and they said no. I just thought: here we have these different people doing…. The Olympics are coming in 2010, and we have this money coming into our community to do projects.

Our community is receiving, I think, $250,000 to build a skateboard park, which is great. All these different communities are trying to do the same, to improve things, and they seem to be working alone. I don't think there's any consolidated effort. Whoever has the project gets the money. It doesn't seem to be something that's a driving force to help the community at large.

The municipality could be involved with increasing our jogging trails and biking trails. We don't have safe ways for our kids to bike to school. There are so many different things that we could improve, which would improve our health.

To wrap it up, I would say that education is a key — both academic and physical education — and we have to raise both those standards. If it comes down to taxation on foods that are not healthy, I believe that is the only way to actually curb the industry. Being in the grocery industry, I see the huge amount of money that companies make on selling junk. I know the figures, and it would stagger you — the millions of dollars that can be made on cookies just in this area. I talk to people and to salesmen, and it would blow you away how much junk we consume.

Taxation on food is the only way to go. I was going to give an example. If you want people to not use a vehicle, the gas has to go up so high until they don't use it. It's the same thing with buying this food. If you don't want people to buy food, you have to hit them in the pocketbook. I think that's the only way. Using less water…. Unless you meter it and pay for it, you'll use as much water as you've always used. It's very difficult to try to change.

One more example from the food industry — the little packs of yogurt and the granola bars that came out in the early '80s. Before that time, there was no such thing as a granola bar. I've seen those go from something that used to be healthy to something that probably has more sugar than a chocolate bar. The huge dollars that are there…. You have to think about that industry.

R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Mr. Lindenbach. I presume, without naming names, you are in the food distribution business in some fashion locally. Is that a fair assessment?

R. Sultan (Chair): Well, there we have it from someone in the business. This is very provocative. Do any committee members have any questions?

M. Best: My name is Meghan Best, and I work for the city's parks and rec department. I just wanted to comment on some of the stuff that Graham has been talking about. I also sit on the active communities initiative that Graham was talking about.

I agree with what Graham has to say about where we're at with our schools. We rely on our schools to do so much, not only to teach our kids in education but to teach them social skills. Now we're asking them to do even more, and I think they need some help. I don't know where they're going to get that help from, but they obviously need some help because they are overwhelmed.

I do a lot of work with the schools in Campbell River. It's unreal, the stuff we ask our teachers to do. Whoever can partner with them, however we can help these teachers do what they need help doing — teaching the kids social skills, teaching them about health and education…. They're really struggling.

I think this is a really great area in which parks and recreation or any other department that works with children and youth could help them. Vancouver Island Health Authority…. We have ample people who love working with kids and would be more than willing to walk into the schools at lunchtime and do basketball or go after school and teach volleyball or do whatever the kids need so that they can be active. We know the teachers just don't have time to do it.

I can probably speak for my entire department. We need the schools to be on board with us and help us to help them. I've approached the school district five or six times now to sit on the Active Campbell River initiative, and they're just too busy.

I don't know how to best help them get on board and become not so busy. We have lots to offer, and we just need to help the schools do it.

R. Sultan (Chair): My Clerk here, the keeper of protocol, has reminded me that I've been very naughty to allow other than the panel members to ask questions of our witness. I know Dr. Ivey would like to make a comment. I would just ask my fellow committee members on the legislative side whether they had any further questions that they wanted to ask Mr. Lindenbach.

If not, Mr. Lindenbach, we would like to thank you for your candid and helpful remarks.

The final presentation of the afternoon will be by Terryl Bertagnolli, who is with the B.C. Cancer Agency. Welcome, Terryl.

T. Bertagnolli: As mentioned, my name is Terryl Bertagnolli. I am a community prevention consultant for the B.C. Cancer Agency, the north Vancouver Island region. Over the last six months we've been doing

a regional assessment to basically bring together all the different program initiatives, ideas and strategies under one roof to get an idea of what's out there and how we can partner together to work towards a common goal.

The B.C. cancer prevention program's mandate is basically to increase awareness of healthy lifestyle choices and practices to reduce the occurrence of cancer. Relative to the schools, one of our main programs is the healthy living schools program.

To date we have approximately 500 schools throughout the province that are certified as healthy living schools. In order to receive certification, they have to answer a five-point questionnaire that expresses to us that they are at least aware or showing interest in promoting healthy choices in their school.

I just recently attended the Child and Adolescent Obesity conference in Vancouver, which was very interesting and, I think, reflected quite well the state that we're at in regards to child and adolescent obesity. To me, that is that there's a lot of evidence supporting the fact that there is a child and adolescent obesity issue but not a lot of strategy that can be implemented to address the issue. I definitely commend your committee on coming out and looking for some strategies from the general population in that regard.

Recently — Sunday, October 8 — I found in the opinion column in the paper an article that says: "Plans to Tax Junk Food Sticks in Readers' Throats." I highlighted a few of the comments that I found relevant, two being, "Once again, those of us with common sense and self-control end up paying the price," and: "Give us a tax break instead of taking and taking." Those were two comments that were in this article.

This article here: "Proposed Junk Food Levy Would Just Be a Turkey of A Tax…." The comments are: "Who's going to decide what would count as junk food?" I think it's a very grey area, as we learned earlier in the presentations from the students in regards to Mr. Wyse's comments about fruit juices and the difference between levels of sugar in fruit juices and pops. It's a very grey area to determine and to tax on. It says on the bottom of the article: "This is one tax scheme that should be junked at the outset."

My role is to educate and to increase awareness, not to advocate. So I don't support the tax one way or the other, but I definitely think that we need to address some of the opinions offered in the paper.

One project that I'm currently working on with the B.C. Cancer Agency is called the pedometer project. When I attended the Child and Adolescent Obesity conference, we were all given a complimentary pedometer. Over lunch it hit me. How can we look and create strategies that support this evidence?

So right now, working with Cafe Crepe…. I'm not sure if anyone from Vancouver is familiar with Cafe Crepe downtown there. Basically, it's a chain outlet that offers crepes, both healthy and unhealthy choices. We're doing a small study to record the number of steps that the workers in the industry are accumulating throughout the day — looking at chefs, servers, managers, hosts and everyone who is working within this service environment — to determine if they are meeting the 10,000-steps-per-day promotion put forth by this new lifestyles pamphlet. The reason is as one of the comments said: talking about giving us a tax break instead of taking and taking.

The concept behind this study is to find a way to promote and support people who are already working in the industry who are meeting these goals. The idea behind it is that if you come in for your shift, you get a pedometer — right? If you meet the amount required — this says 10,000 steps per day — it's recorded, and it goes on your tax slip. Rather than paying full taxes as we do now, you would be rewarded with a tax refund. Say, on a weekly basis, you get your 50,000 steps — right? The owner of the business records that, and when that information goes into payroll — boom — a code's pushed in. They made it.

Instead of paying a full 100-percent CPP, they pay 75 percent. Hence they're rewarded, say, $25 on every hundred dollars. It puts a little extra money in the pockets of this industry.

The reason we're targeting this industry is in part because of the emphasis on the service industry for the 2010 Olympics. The service industry and hospitality industry are going to be probably the largest industries hit by this event. Given that a lot of the students that are in schools — aged 14 and up — are probably working within this industry, this seems, to us, a potential strategy to increase their level of physical activity — right?

As I said, right now it's really in the early stages. We're just recording the data to see how many steps are being taken in these positions, and then we're looking to further the study once the data is confirmed.

I would like to just comment a little further in regards to Mr. Sather's comment and question about the war or the combat on all these different things. Basically, I brought this article, because I thought it was quite relevant to the whole discussion here.

This is an article that was in the Campbell River paper, and it says: "Chocolate for a cause." I'll briefly read the article:

In regards to Mr. Sather's question, the answer, to me, is this — and it comes from age-old knowledge of the Bible: the book of Mark, chapter 3, verse 23. The question is: how can Satan cast out Satan?

I leave you with that — something to think about. I support you in everything you're working towards. You have my card. I look forward to forwarding you more information about what we're doing at the B.C. Cancer Agency.

Well, from southern discrimination to the Bible, we've covered the waterfront here in Campbell River today. Do any of my fellow committee members have a compelling question they wanted to ask Terryl, keeping in mind the hour?

K. Whittred: I just wanted to make a comment, and it's really nothing particularly related to what you said. You just reminded me of it. That is: around the pedometer and the 10,000 steps a day.

I think that in the community there are huge mixed messages about the amount of activity that is a good, healthy level of activity. There is this 10,000 steps a day. I know, because I walk every day, that I have to walk for 90 minutes to get in my 10,000 steps. Now, that's fine; that's good.

Other guidelines will say if you do 30 minutes three times a week, that is a good standard. Others will say if you do 30 minutes a day. So I guess my point is simply: to those of you who are out in the community, I think somebody at some point has to agree on what is a useful and acceptable standard of activity for people in the community to follow. That's just an observation that I make.

T. Bertagnolli: I support you in that observation, Katherine. And if I can build on that a little bit, something that I learned from the student presentation is that there's a strong association with physical activity and sport. But that's not necessarily the case. Physical activity does not need to be sport.

As Katherine said, if we could clarify the message and bring some continuity to all these different groups that are offering this information, I think that we'd be taking some key steps in tackling this issue.

R. Sultan (Chair): Thank you, Terryl. I think we should show our appreciation for his contribution.

Well, audience and committee members, it's been a long day, and it's not completed yet. We have many miles to go before we sleep.

I would like to conclude this session in Campbell River by once again thanking the students, in particular the youth of Carihi Secondary School and their principal Tom Demeo, but all of the other staff members who assisted putting on a remarkable series of presentations by the younger people of this community. As I said in Vancouver, these young people represent our future. Based upon what we heard this afternoon from Carihi, I think our future is well assured, and it gives me great confidence. Thank you again.

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	1)	Kristyn Stobbe Rachel Kerr
	2)	Erica Benson Megan Ralph
	3)	Danika Solhjell Emily Maclean Georgia Chadwick Chloe Girard
	4)	Kirsty Graham Laura Barkley Mack Thompson
	5)	Brandi Jeune Megan Ralph
	6)	Alyssa Robertson
	7)	Nick Guthrie
	8)	Whitney Westbrook
	9)	Pam Walker
	10)	Nancy Lawrence
	11)	Scotti Sam
	12)	Elijah Faulkner
	13)	Isaac Blyleven
	14)	Bryan Jorgensen

15)	Dr. Carl Ivey
16)	Graham Lindenbach
17)	Meghan Best
18)	BC Cancer Agency	Terryl Bertagnolli

Committee Staff:	Jonathan Fershau (Committee Research Analyst) Carla Shore (Committee Consultant)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
HEALTH