In Canada, it is not uncommon to see entire shelves of unsavory food for the sake of good health. How can junk food still have its place in places dedicated to health?
Junk food too present in pharmacies in Canada?
When you walk into a pharmacy in Canada, a large part of the place is devoted to food. However, these products are not natural foods, dietary supplements, or meal replacements for dieters. We then speak of junk food: soft drinks, crisps, sweet biscuits and sweets of all kinds.
Me Bourassa-Forcier teaches at the University of Sherbrooke. She explains that many pharmacists don’t really have a choice to accept or refuse these products. Their pharmacy is in fact associated with large chains, which exert significant pressure on the contents of their shelves. and they cannot exercise decision-making power.
Promote health or trade?
The double hat of pharmacists is paradoxical: how can we both promote the patient’s health and encourage him to consume by offering him products that are harmful to his health ? In Quebec, 7% of food is purchased in pharmacies. The cost of care for people affected by diseases caused by a poor diet is staggering and begins to question the Order of Pharmacists.
” We had legal leverage for tobacco; for sugar or other foods, we don’t have any. We have no legal leverage to search the pharmacist’s shop and forbid him things, but we can certainly encourage him to think about it », Concludes Bertrand Bolduc, president of the Ordre des pharmaciens du Québec.
Maylis Choné
Read also: Why do we like to eat fatty and sweet?
