Rethinking Women and Healthy Living in Canada

A. Pederson, M.J. Haworth-Brockman, B. Clow, H. Isfeld and A. Liwander.
Editors

The BC Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health, the Atlantic Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health and the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence have released a new women’s health resource entitled Rethinking Women and Healthy Living in Canada. The report, funded by Health Canada, is intended to generate an understanding of women and healthy living and to contribute to the development of evidence-informed responses to addressing challenges related to healthy living for women in Canada. In the report, the three Centres argue that healthy living needs to be reframed and embrace a broader concept of health and health issues in order to improve women’s healthy living.

Rethinking Women and Healthy Living in Canada includes four parts; (1) an overview of the status of women in Canada and the healthy living discourse; (2) a profile of women and healthy living; (3) healthy living strategies and promising gender-sensitive intervention; and (4) conclusions. The first part looks at international measures of gender equality and includes a demographic profile of women in Canada. It also describes the key features of the healthy living discourse and provides a history of its emergence in Canada. In the second part, profiles of women and healthy living are provided for ten topic areas: body weights, eating well, food insecurity, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, sexual behaviour, injuries and gender-based violence. The third part of the report examines selected healthy living strategies including the federal strategy and strategies from Ontario, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia using a sex-and gender-based analysis. Descriptions of new approaches to healthy living programming for women, including promising gender-sensitive practices such as trauma-informed physical activity, are provided. In the fourth part, we present our conclusions.

The report is accompanied by fact sheets on healthy living:

1. Physical Activity 
2. Sedentary Behaviour 
3. Smoking Tobacco 
4. Drinking Alcohol 
5. Condom Use 
6. Sexual Behaviour 
7. Food Insecurity 
8. Self-Injury 
9. Sodium Consumption 

Download the entire set of fact sheets .

Downloads

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