Inuit preschoolers often go hungry: study

Seventy per cent of Inuit preschoolers in Nunavut live in homes where there isn't enough food, a situation with implications for children's development, a McGill University researcher says.

The average Nunavut family with young children is paying close to $430 a week for groceries, double the price for a family of the same size in the south, says professor Grace Egeland of the McGill Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment.

Egeland and her team reported their findings in a study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Their study is based on face-to-face interviews with the mothersor othercaregiversof 388 Inuit children aged three to five in 16 communities in 2007-2008.

"When a mother would get tears in her eyes when these questions are getting asked, we realized there are a lot of hidden problems that haven't really come to light," Egeland said.

Those problems range from adults skipping meals so that youngsters won't go hungry, to children sometimes not eating for a full day.

Impact on concentration

Dr. Isaac Sobol, Nunavut's chief medical officer, told CBC News that while the reported levels of hunger are nothing like those in impoverished nations, the lack of nutrition does have an impact on Inuit children's concentration and alertness.

"Children aren't very well prepared to engage properly in school if they're hungry," Sobol said.

The study alsofound that 29 per cent of children were obese and 39 per cent were overweight.

Egeland said it's not all that startling because parents buy foods high in carbohydrates, which tend to be cheap and filling.

The good news is 44 per cent of children still have access to traditional food either hunted by family members or shared among friends and neighbours.Still, Egeland cautioned that despite such access, her team gathered reports of children going hungry and skipping meals.

"Food insecurity is all too prevalent in homes with Inuit preschoolers in Canadian Arctic communities," Egeland and her co-authors wrote. "The data suggest that support systems need to be strengthened for Inuit families with young children."

Those supports include food banks and subsidies for food with high nutritional value, the authors suggested.

'Health crisis' possible

The issue of hunger in Nunavut deserves urgent attention, said David Wilman, a longtime resident who recently worked on a "report card" of the territorial government's programs and policies.

"If it doesn't, there'll be a crisis, I think a health crisis, among not just children, among many Inuit and among many northerners," Wilman said.

Wilman said people in almost every community he visited while working on the report card reported that children were going to school hungry.

As for the reasons why there is widespread hunger, aside from overcrowded housing and unemployment, Wilman said people are not hunting traditional foods as much because they cannot afford hunting equipment.

As well, Wilman said, Nunavummiutare depending more onexpensive store-bought food.

"The third part, I think, is unsuitable use of money when people who don't have a lot of resources spend money on gambling, on alcohol, on drugs," he added.