Proposed food guide allows too many calories: obesity doctor

Proposed revisions to Canada's Food Guide are being criticized for recommending portions that are too large and could encourage people to overeat and become overweight.

The revised "bible of healthy eating" will include the familiar four food groups, but the recommended number of servings and serving sizes will change for some items, said Katherine Gray-Donald, who sits on the Health Canada advisory panel for the guide.

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"Instead of saying two to three servings of meat every day for basically everybody and judge whether you're a big eater or a small eater, we've set up age/sex categories," said Gray-Donald, a professor of human nutrition at Montreal's McGill University.

"So younger men can eat more, older women can eat less."

However, the food guides, both old and new, allow for too many calories that can make people fat, said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, who practices obesity medicine at Ottawa's Bariatric Medical Institute and wrote a letter criticizing the diet to the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

"Health Canada's account recommended between 1,800 and 3,200 calories a day, and that's enough to cause anybody with a healthy weight to gain," said Freedhoff. "To me, that seems a pretty shocking thing to do when we're faced with such a major concern of obesity in society."

Not necessarily, say fans of the food guide.

"If you go with lean food, lean meat, low-fat milk and dairy then with the Canada Food Guide, you can have a 1,200 calorie diet, which is a weight-loss diet that is completely healthy and meets all of your requirements," said Emmy Matten, a nutritionist with the Montreal Diet Dispensary.

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"The more the 'other' foods we eat, the more likely we would be getting too many calories or perhaps developing weight problems," said Gray-Donald.

Proponents of the guide say the reason there is an obesity problem is because Canadians are ignoring the guide, not because they're following it.

They also say people should be following the related activity guidelines that recommend doing at least 30 minutes of moderate activity every day.

Canada's new food guide is due out this fall. Before it is published, Canadians can weigh in with their opinions on the department's website.