INUVIK - After seeing funding for her Healthy Foods North study end, Professor Sangita Sharma is ready to relaunch it and is planning two free seminars in Inuvik to train researchers. They will learn how to compile data on what people eat and how it affects health - this time focusing on children.

From left, University of Alberta Professor Sangita Sharma stands with Inuvik's Alice Thrasher and post-doctoral student Nonsikelelo Mathe to show posters of the questions they will ask Inuvik children and parents to determine what foods residents are eating and how it affects health. - Kira Curtis/NNSL photo

The first study done for Healthy Foods North was a random sampling of what adults ate and the reasons they chose those foods.

Sharma said while doing that study people often voiced concerns about children.

"The number one request that we got was could we do something to improve childhood obesity," Sharma said from a room in Inuvik's Aurora College.

She was there teaching a pilot program to introduce a free course she will be teaching this fall on healthy eating and how each community can gather research on what is being consumed.

"Because if you can prevent obesity you prevent cancer, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure," she said.

Sharma said to her three students, one from Inuvik and two from Arviat in Nunavut, the project "would be including things like physical activities and showing children the value of the country foods as opposed to things like burgers and sausages and chips."

Inuvik resident and college student Alice Thrasher had the opportunity to try this course, and she is really glad she did.

"It's really interesting," she said. "I'm glad I decided to take it because it gives you so much insight into how you can make people from the North benefit from these small programs."

The course - to be offered in September of this year and January 2012 - is open to anyone who is interested in learning how to gather proper data from youth.

Once the data is compiled, the next step is to address the reasons why people eat unhealthy foods and how to encourage a switch to healthier choices.

In the adult study Sharma found cost and accessibility were factors as to why households chose unhealthy foods, as well as time factors on preparing fresh food as opposed to pre-packaged.

Sharma also wants to find out if people are consuming traditional foods, what traditional foods and how much protein that contributes to their diet.

"Then also seeing if kids actually know that a can of coke has six spoons of sugar," she said.

The Healthy Foods North project began to compile adult dietary information in Northern communities in 2007 and was funded by a few American organizations, as Sharma lived in the States at the time. When she moved to Canada last July the funding ended and she has had to start from scratch to mobilize this next phase. She has been having trouble finding Canadian funding.

She said long-term funding can be put on hold during a recession but the cost of paying for emergency help when the health of individuals gets dangerously bad, can cost more in the long run.

"So the money is probably going more into this side of treatment as opposed to that side of prevention cause it's an emergency and urgent," Sharma said, "so you need a little extra money to start up a new prevention program."

Thrasher beamed when asked how she liked the course and if people should sign up for it in September.

"I find it really interesting," she said. "It's beneficial to the people and they'd support it."

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