Feds send Hamilton $870,000 to encourage healthy living and combat rising diabetes rates.
Published September 6, 2022 at 9:11 pm
The Federal Government is sending Hamilton’s McMaster University $870,000 to promote healthy living habits among city residents to combat rising diabetes.
The project set to receive the funds aims to promote, “physical activity, eating healthier and tobacco cessation.” “It is important that everyone living in Canada, especially those who are socially and economically marginalized have the support needed to adopt and maintain healthy behaviours,” a Government of Canada news release read.
Hamilton East – Stoney Mountain MP Chad Collins was in town today on behalf of Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos to announce the funding injection with a “focus on risk factors associated with unhealthy eating and physical inactivity among priority populations, including newcomers.”
The broad goal of the project is to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes. Per Diabetes Canada this type accounts for 90 per cent of all Canadian cases of diabetes. Unlike its type 1 counterpart, type 2 diabetes is usually the result of obesity and lack of exercise. However genetics do play a factor.
In case of type 1 diabetes the body destroys the cells that create insulin and thus break down sugar. This results in a complete lack of naturally-occurring insulin. In type 2 the body continues to produce some insulin, but not enough.
Type 1 diabetes has no known method of prevention, but type 2 can be avoided by a healthy diet heavy on fruit and vegetables and regular exercise.
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To encourage these healthy habits, the federal government is sending the $870,000 to McMaster University’s “SCORE! Strengthening Community Roots: Anchoring Newcomers and Sustainability” project.
This project targets South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern new immigrants. The highest rates in Canada, per Diabetes Canada are South Asian communities at 8.5 per cent, slightly higher than the 8.1 per cent of people affected in Black communities and considerably higher than Chinese-Canadian populations at 4.3
Incident rates of new cases among these communities is 3.4, 2, and 1.9 times more common in these respective groups than in the Caucasian population.
In order to help these communities combat diabetes McMaster hopes to “nurture a love of the outdoors, gardening, and hiking among these communities as well as build partnerships between families, schools, healthcare facilities, and local organizations.”
The project comes after two decades of increasing obesity and declining activity and fruit and vegetable consumption rates across Canada.
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