GREG BONNELL
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's health care system is headed for double jeopardy as overweight young Canadians and aging baby boomers with weight problems threaten to place a heavy burden on already strained services, a new report says.
The 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey says 19.5 per cent of young Canadians are overweight and 7.8 per cent obese.
And the generation including baby boomers is also tipping the scales at 37.9 per cent overweight and 18.5 per cent obese, the study released Tuesday shows.
In addition to health problems inherent in an aging population, experts say, the system will have to contend with a generation of young people developing conditions such as diabetes and hypertension much earlier in life.
Some are already presenting with such ailments, says Dr. Anthony Graham of the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
"These are new diseases in teenagers that didn't exist before. We're seeing hypertension in kids that we've never seen before."
The comprehensive report released by Statistics Canada shows just the tip of an iceberg, medical experts say. But Canadians got a glimpse of its size.
In the total population 18 and older, obesity and overweight increased only slightly from 2001.
In 2003, 14.9 per cent of Canadians were obese, compared to 14.1 per cent in 2001. Overweight percentage of population in 2003 was 33.3 per cent, compared to 32.4 per cent in 2001.
As in the past, the highest incidence of overweight in 2003 was in the 45 to 64 age group.
Obesity statistics will eventually encounter a "ceiling effect," as a portion of the population remains resistant to becoming overweight, Dr. Mark Tremblay, a senior scientific adviser at Statistics Canada, says.
"I hope it's not misinterpreted as us finally solving the problem," he said. Given that Tuesday's numbers were based on self-reported measures, Tremblay suspects the number of overweight Canadians is much higher.
In the next cycle of the survey, to be released in 2005, 30,000 people will be weighed and measured by StatsCan surveyors.
"Then we'll know, with much more confidence, what the prevalence of overweight and obesity is in Canada," said Tremblay. "It will almost certainly be much higher than the estimates we're getting."
While obesity rates for those under 18 were excluded from Tuesday's survey due to concerns about accurate reporting, those numbers will be included in the 2005 release.
The next age group on the scale, the 18 and 19 year olds, posted discouraging numbers, with 13.6 per cent overweight and 5.5 per cent obese. The 20 to 24 year olds fared worse, with 21.8 per cent overweight and 8.6 obese.
Some 46.7 per cent of Canadians reported being normal weight and 2.6 per cent underweight.
Reflecting closer attention to their weight, four times as many women as men were underweight - some 4.1 - compared to 1.1 per cent of men.
The survey also looked at several other health factors and found that:
- Smoking continued its substantial decline of the past decade, with some 20 cent per cent of the population lighting up compared to 29 per cent in 1994.
- More than 3.6 million Canadians had no regular doctor, with 1.2 million of them unable to find one and 2.4 million not bothering to try.
- Almost half of Canadians are considered inactive.
- Nearly one-quarter - 24.4 per cent - found life very stressful.
- One per cent of those between 18 and 59 identified themselves as homosexual.
While some might find the double-jeopardy fears alarmist, Graham says it's entirely plausible given the trend toward obesity.
"These people, by their nature, are going to have an increased effect on the system at some point."
He warns that fat has become the new tobacco.
"The prevalence of this serious health risk is almost exactly what we faced with tobacco use 30 years ago, when half of Canadians smoked," he said.
Even though Tuesday's numbers weren't a dramatic rise, the explosion in obesity over the past 20 years can't be overlooked, he said.
"There's been a tripling of incidences of obesity over that relatively short period of time."
"We can predict when people get diabetes that within 20 years, they will have the vascular effects of diabetes, hardening of the arteries.
"So we'll start to see vascular complications when these kids are in their 30s."
Among the long-term effects of hypertension are increased risk of stroke, kidney problems, and heart failure.
"I think we live in a toxic environment that's conducive to being obese," said Tremblay.
Modern life leads to excessive eating, poor diet and inadequate movement both at work and in leisure time, he says. It has become the norm.
"The simple message is: Easier isn't better physiologically."
Canadians aren't alone in their battle against the bulge.
A recent International Obesity Task Force report estimates that around the globe, some 312 million people are obese. That includes some 20 per cent of the Australian population, 22 per cent in England and 31 per cent in the United States.
The international report also found that one in 10 children ages five to 17 worldwide are overweight, while two to three per cent are obese.
The Statistic Canada survey criteria for obesity were based on Body Mass Index, an internationally accepted standard that uses a person's weight and height to gauge total body fat.