Community Cultures, Geography and Obesity

"On the West Coast people are able to be outside all year round and actually bike to work or take active transportation, whereas in northern areas of the East Coast, the snow prevents people from doing this."

"There may also be differences in access to opportunities with respect to healthy food, and there are probably some elements of provincial cultural differences as well."

"Maybe people who value physical activity and eating healthy foods and may be less likely to have obesity cluster themselves in neighbourhoods that have good access to healthy food sources or walkable neighbourhoods."

"It becomes kind of a chicken and egg situation. Geography is one component, but we don't fully understand the extent to which geographic differences in obesity are causal versus just correlational."

Dr.Leia Minaker, assistant professor, school of planning, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario

"At the provincial level, what we see are those populations living in more remote and rural areas have higher rates of obesity and overweight."

"More high-density cities have more people walking to work and walking to shop because it's easier, whereas someone in a rural or remote area might have many kilometres to get to a shop or their workplace."

"The way we design our communities has a big impact on our health, and where you live matters. The statistics show that places like Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are best-served with respect to this particular health outcome, so we need to start paying more attention to small and midsized cities."

Dr.Jason Gilliland, director of urban development, Western University, London, Ontario

Canada's rural areas and small population centres,  areas holding populations of fewer than a thousand and less than 30,000 respectively have obesity rates at the 33 percent level, in stark contrast to the country's urban centres with populations of over 100,000 where an obesity rate of 23 percent prevails. Those people living with obesity varies by city with some of the lowest rates to be found in the three largest cities in Canada; Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver -- with obesity rates of 20.5%, 24.2% and 19.7$ respectively.

Quebec City, Ottawa and Calgary represent other large cities with somewhat similar numbers where obesity rates are roughly 23 percent. On the other hand, cities such as Sudbury (32.6%), Thunder Bay (38.30%), Saskatoon (32.2%). St.John's Newfoundland (33.3%) and Saint John New Brunswick, (41.1%), represent cities of middling-size hosting some of the highest obesity rates in the country. Neighbourhood design and structures in place enabling people to lead healthy lives account for much of the variation, points out Dr.Gilliland.

All of which adds up to over one in four Canadians considered to be living with obesity, irrespective of the seeming conundrum that obesity rates tend to vary considerably from one geographic area to another, with the lowest adult obesity rates being in the provinces of Quebec (25.4%) and British Columbia (22.2%), according to 2019 data from Statistics Canada. Ontario's residents have a 27.1% obesity rate, also on the lower end.

In the Atlantic provinces, however, a very different situation prevails where some of the highest obesity rates are reflected. The most obese province, Newfoundland and Labrador has a 40 percent obesity rate, and nor are obesity rates in the north much lower where the Northwest Territories has a rate close to 40 percent, while the Yukon and Nunavut see rates of close to 35 percent.