Do urban residents in Saskatchewan, Canada, support changes in their cities to promote healthy eating and physical activity?

To create healthy urban places and spaces, public acceptance is key to success.

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Target audience

City and municipal planners, public health officials, elected officials at municipal level, health promotion practitioners, citizens

The problem

Poor eating habits and physical inactivity are linked to rising rates of obesity and related chronic conditions. The built environment plays a significant role in shaping these behaviours. To be effective, interventions and policies that transform the built environment to encourage healthy choices must be accepted by the public. However, the lack of context-specific Canadian data on acceptability highlights the need for further research to guide practice and address public health challenges.

What we did and why

We examined the level of agreement among adults in two major cities in Saskatchewan, Canada, to implement built environment interventions and policies promoting healthy eating and physical activity. We explored the individual and neighbourhood-level factors that influenced their agreement. We also looked at the effect of the degree of intrusiveness of the interventions, and policies on agreement. The study’s findings will have practical implications for designing more acceptable interventions to promote healthier behaviours in the population.

Our study’s contribution

We found that:

Individuals preferred less intrusive interventions such as informing and educating the public and enabling options to change behaviours.
Women and Immigrants were more likely to support interventions and policies promoting physical activity and healthy eating irrespective of their level of intrusiveness.
Indigenous respondents were more likely to support interventions with higher levels of intrusiveness.

Recently implemented and proposed built environment changes in the cities may have impacted the study’s findings.

Impacts for city policy and practice

We found that:

Although more research is necessary to understand motivational differences between demographic groups, we can suggest cities need to consider the following;

Prioritize built environment interventions and policies that have citizens’ support and acceptance to ensure equitable and favourable results.
Consider cultural differences when implementing interventions in specific communities to increase acceptance and effectiveness.
Engage and collaborate with communities to address concerns and improve perception, especially among those who can be indecisive.

Further information

Full research article:

Acceptability of built environment interventions to improve healthy eating and physical activity among city dwellers in Saskatchewan, Canada: THEPA findings from a local context by Sahana Ramamoorthy, Lise Gauvin, and Nazeem Muhajarine.

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