The demands of daily life, both at work and at home, pose new challenges that Canadians must constantly meet; the channels for disseminating information are multiple, and the emergence of new technologies increases the complexity of the skills needed to integrate this information and ensure that it benefits the entire population.
When it comes to demystifying the information that influences the food choices of Canadian consumers, it's important to recognize that these choices unquestionably have a direct impact on their state of health and well-being. To help Canadians make informed choices about healthy eating, we need to do more to inform and educate them.
The new Eating Well with Canada's Food Guide [hereafter the Guide] and the information contained in the Nutrition Facts table are tools that can help you develop this ability.
Unfortunately, almost 50 percent of adult Canadians have a literacy level that only allows them to "read simple, explicit texts, corresponding to low-complexity tasks"; this is not a sufficient level to function properly on a day-to-day basis.
As such, these findings highlight the influence that reduced literacy skills can have on the health status of these Canadians, including those born in the country and those making a new home and a fresh start.
With this in mind, we met not only people working in fields where food and nutrition are central concerns, but also organizations who, in the course of their activities, encounter individuals with literacy-related difficulties.
To ensure that our recommendations reflected Canadian society, our focus groups were made up of participants from Quebec and multi-ethnic backgrounds, including newcomers.
We also carried out a review of the relevant literature in order to draw up a summary of the tools available in relation to the issue in question, which enabled us to note that, although interesting tools do exist, they are still few and far between.
