The World Health Organization’s sugar report has caused concern for Health Canada. Newly released documents reveal Health Canada’s reaction to the World Health Organization draft guidelines on sugar intake.
The draft guidelines were released in March 2014. In March 2015, the World Health Organization adopted those guidelines into a formal report.
Emails from Health Canada were obtained in an access to information request. The emails detail communication notes and strategy from March 2014. One email states that a “key concern” for Health Canada is the impact of World Health Organization recommendations on food labeling, health claims, and nutrient information provided on the Nutrition Facts Table.
Representatives from Health Canada declined to comment on the access to information request.
Canada, like most countries around the world, has not set a quantified limit for sugar intake. However, it provides dietary guidelines on foods that are high in sugar, states Eric Morisette, the Manager of Media Relations at Health Canada.
To mitigate concern, Health Canada began a policy review for nutrition labeling.
To execute the review, Health Canada opened a comment section on their website in July 2014. It encouraged the public and stakeholders to provide opinions on food labels.
“The new labeling would give consumers the tools that they need to compare foods and make informed and healthier choices,” states Morisette.
Open forums can help Health Canada to make decisions on how to proceed with policy, states Christine LeGrand, Senior Knowledge Translation Specialist at the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation, a key stakeholder, provided comment and recommendation to the forum.
“Even in light of the fact that Health Canada has not yet set a threshold for recommended intake, the Heart and Stroke Foundation can provide a recommendation,” states LeGrand.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation released its own sugar guidelines in August 2014. Their guidelines are aligned with that of the World Health Organization.
“We look to the adoption of those guidelines by Health Canada. That’s ideal. That’s what we would like to see.”
Health Canada closed its discussion forum in September 2014.
“At this point we’re analyzing the information that we collected throughout the process,” states Morisette.
There is no date set for the release of the new position ad no changes have been made to nutrition labels.
“Canada is the first and only country in the world to have proposed multiple approaches to sugar labeling,” states Morisette.
The World Health Organization recommends a reduced intake of free sugars. Free sugars include monosaccharides and disaccharides. They are sugars which are added to foods by the manufacturer, cook, or consumer. They are also sugars that are naturally present in fruit, honey, and syrups. The World Health Organization recommends reducing the intake of free sugars to less than 10 per cent of total energy intake.
This is a “strong recommendation”.
A “conditional recommendation” encourages a further reduction of the intake of free sugars to be below five per cent.
Canada currently follows the Dietary Reference Intakes. The Dietary Reference Intakes provides suggestions for sugar consumption. The suggestions are included in Canada’s Food Guide.
“Those guidelines really assist a government to set policy,” states Laura Pasut, Director of Nutrition for the Canadian Sugar Institute.
Both Health Canada and the United States government contributed to the Dietary Reference Intakes. The guidelines recommends that Canadians consume a maximum level of 25 per cent of energy from their sugars.
“There was a concern that above those levels people would not be consuming enough foods from the various food groups in order to get all their micronutrients,” states Pasut.
LeGrand states that the government and stakeholders, such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation, should continue to focus on providing a common message to Canadians.
“They less sugar they eat, the better they are,” states LeGrand.
Follow below to see a timeline of sugar recommendations.Click the right hand arrow to move through time.
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ASSIGNMENT COMPONENTS
(1) In the link below title “ATIP_Requests you will find copies of at least one request to each three levels of government (1 federal, 2 provincial and 2 municipal). The PDF document also includes three requests for previously released records from the federal government.
(2) My communications were done over the phone. This is an example of one of the out of office requests I received. I did not find the information from many of my ATIPs very useful and therefore further contact was not necessary.
(3) Here is the document cloud link to the ATIP. For this article I used the entire ATIP however, here are two pages which were particularly helpful.
– These are emails from Health Canada concerning the government’s “standard response on sugar.” There is also a memo to an Assistant Deputy Minister of Health.
– These emails/ communications are from Health Canada.
– This information was helpful because it stated that “a key concern” for the federal department would the impact of the World Health Organization sugar guidelines. This was the starting point for my article. From there, I was able to chart Health Canada’s concerns throughout 2014. I did not get comment on whether Health Canada was still concerned or not. However, this provided insight into the current position of Health Canada.