Discussion questions 5

Definitions

What’s the difference between inflation and recession?

• Inflation: a general increase in prices of goods and services, reducing the purchasing power of money

• Recession: a period of economic decline, marked by a drop in GDP, employment, and spending

→ Stagflation: rare situation where high inflation occurs alongside a recession

What is the hidden unemployed?

• Official unemployment figures don’t reflect how many people are unemployed because to count as unemployed you must be:

  • Recently out of work

  • Actively seeking work

  • Available to take a job if one should be offered to you

What is Keynesianism?

• That modern governments must intervene to ensure that employment remains at the highest-sustainable level, as close to full employment as possible, because only under those conditions is economic growth sustainable

  • Goal: achieving near full employment through government spending, lower interest rates, and other policies

Explain the changes in eligibility for unemployment insurance in Canada and the potential impact on health?

• Worker eligibility for unemployment insurance now depends on the length of employment service and the amount contributed to the insurance plan

  • This mostly affects women who work part-time, seasonal workers, people in sunset industries (limited/sporadic jobs)

  • Health impacts: mental health, reduced access to healthcare, poorer nutrition…

What’s the impact of education and training for workforce health outcomes?

• Higher levels of education and specialized job training generally lead to better health outcomes, while a lack of education or training can increase workplace risks and long-term health problems

  • Education + training = decreased chronic illness, decreased workplace injuries and accidents, healthier lifestyle

What is food security? What are its 4 dimensions?

• Food security: when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences

• 4 dimensions:

  1. Physical availability of food

  2. Economic and physical access to food

  3. Food utilization

  4. Stability of the other 3 dimensions over time

What is food insecurity?

• The inability to acquire or consume an adequate diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so

What’s a nutritional recession?

• When economic downturns lead to changes in food consumption patterns and potentially poorer health outcomes, especially for vulnerable populations

  → We often see increased amounts of processed food and decreased time cooking and negative impacts on dietary intake and quality

What are the social determinants of diet?

1. Income

2. Education → impacts capacity to plan/budget, knowledge/skills about nutritional values

3. Quality of housing → impacts features of the person’s home

4. Neighbourhood → impacts exposure to peer pressure from neighbourhood social network, marketing of food choices

What are food banks?

• Non-profit organizations that collect, store, and distribute food to individuals and families facing food insecurity

  • They were introduced as a short-term stop gap measure to deal with the fallout from the economic downturn in the early 1980s

What are food deserts?

• Neighbourhoods where there is less diversity of foodstuffs available for residents, greater concentrations of processed foods and fast foods, and higher food prices than richer neighbourhoods

  • Often concentrated in poorer neighbourhoods in the U.S.

What are the determinants of obesity?

1. Processed foods

2. Fast food and conventional restaurants

3. Soft drinks

4. Public policies like farm subsidies (government support)

Critical thinking questions

1. What individual and community factors influence people’s eating behaviour?

2. Obesity rates have been rising sharply around the world, even in some relatively poor countries. Currently, about one-third of Americans are obese—that is, they score over 30 when you divide their weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared (kg/m2 = BMI).

   
   Around 30% of Canadian adults aged 18 and older were classified as obese in 2023. The rate of increase in obesity has slowed in Canada, but the trend toward obesity has remained strong in the United States.

   
   What factors lie behind these statistics?