Northwestern Ontarians are batting .400 when it comes to the five bad habits that are killing off Ontarians up to seven years early.
A great target in baseball, not accomplished in more than 70 years when Ted Williams turned the trick in 1941 for the Boston Red Sox, it’s not so good for life expectancies in Thunder Bay and the rest of the region.
Anne Ostrom, the healthy communities co-ordinator at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, on Thursday said tobacco use, fruit and vegetable intake, binge drinking, stress and inactivity levels all have a part to play in longevity.
Ontario-wide, about 18 per cent of the population use tobacco products, but here in the Northwest, that figure jumps by 38 per cent.
“For tobacco use, we are higher than the Ontario average. A quarter of us still use tobacco products,” Ostrom said.
The region’s eating habits aren’t much better, she added, falling well short of the seven to 10 servings recommended.
“With fruit and veggie intake, we have lower rates than the Ontario average. Only 40 per cent of us get enough veggies or fruit,” Ostrom said. “And that number is actually declining, especially among women.”
The news isn’t all bad, she noted.
“We are more active than the Ontario average, which means that only 40 per cent of us are inactive. But we can’t rest on those laurels. Those rates too have declined and if you look at women over the age of 65, 60 per cent of them are inactive, and that’s a real concern,” Ostrom said.
Twenty-two per cent of Northwestern Ontarians are considered heavy drinkers, which is four percentage points higher than the provincial average, though only 20 per cent have too much stress, compared to 24 per cent across Ontario.
Prevention is the key to turning lifestyles around, Ostrom said, and Thunder Bay is slowly starting to get the message. But while social marketing and health promotion campaigns are somewhat effective, they only go so far to change behaviour.
Starting the younger generation along a healthy lifestyle path will ingrain the right choices at an earlier age, making it more likely they’ll stick around through adulthood.
Legislation, for example, ordering schools to serve healthier foods is a great start, Ostrom said.
“The policies around that will make a big difference in the amount of veggies and fruit that children eat and the quality of the food,” she said.
Those changes came at the provincial level, but there is plenty the city can do at the municipal level, she said.
“Anything we can do as a community to improve infrastructure for walking, whether it’s trails or sidewalks or crosswalks, even bike lanes – the more infrastructure we have to be active, the better and healthier our community will be.”
Ostrom admitted it was shocking to see making simple changes in these five areas will not only help people live longer, but improve the quality of life during those years.
She’s hoping the message filters through to the powers that be and they’ll continue to recognize the role they have to play.
“It goes back to what we know, that different things motivate us at different times to make different behaviour changes,” she said.
“We are more active in nice weather, when I see lots of people walking on the trails. However, if there are no nice places to walk, if we’re worried about crime in our neighbourhood, we’re not going walk as much. If we’re worried about traffic, we’re not going to walk as much.”
