September 20, 2006
The cost of the local “Nutritious Food Basket” for a reference family of four has gone up $21.17 or 3.4% higher than last year. Since 1998, the cost of this list of 66 foods based on Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating has risen by 19%. During the same time, minimum wage has only risen 13% and Social Assistance rates have seen net cuts.
“It is clear that after paying fixed costs such as rent, phone, transportation and other necessities, thousands of people in Thunder Bay are struggling to afford to buy enough healthy food to feed their families,” points out Catherine Schwartz Mendez, Public Health Nutritionist at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. “The greatest impact is being felt by the more vulnerable members of our community, the working poor and those unable to work. We need to make sure social assistance and minimum wage is adequate enough so people don’t have to choose between paying the rent and feeding themselves and their families.”
Inadequate nutrition has many serious health effects, including greater chance of infectious and chronic diseases, and greater incidence of low birth-weight babies and neural tube defects. According to the National Health Population Survey (2001), several health problems were more prevalent among residents in food insecure households, with 21% reporting at least three chronic conditions. These diseases and health problems require more tax dollars to treat and manage than would be needed to prevent them with adequate incomes.
Local food banks serve an ever increasing number of people, including those with jobs- more than 3,400 hampers and 14,000 meals per month. This emergency approach for feeding a family is becoming an ongoing arrangement for some families. Yet, food banks are not able to provide food for a family more than once a month, nor can they provide food which is nutritionally complete.
According to the Thunder Bay District Health Unit and other provincial public health bodies, in order to reduce food insecurity and hunger, the Ontario government must further increase the minimum wage, build significantly more affordable housing units, and index social assistance rates to the cost of living.
At its last meeting, the Board of Health for the Thunder Bay District Health Unit endorsed the “Thunder Bay and Surrounding Area Food Charter” to guide local decision making and policies related to food and food security.
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