A/HRC/22/50/Add.1 using a food systems approach, which seeks to integrate considerations linked to economic accessibility, disease prevention, food literacy, environmental sustainability and economic development. 44. Provinces have also been adopting initiatives in this area. Ontario’s Action Plan for Health Care includes a Child Obesity Strategy and is supported by outside partners such as the Nutrition Resource Centre and the Healthy Communities Fund. Since 2006, Ontario has benefited from the Northern Fruit and Vegetable Program that provides fruit and vegetable snacks twice a week to 18,000 northern children in 106 schools. In Manitoba, the Healthy Together Now programme supports 83 community projects that promote healthy eating, and the Healthy Schools initiatives improves the quality of food served in schools (School Nutrition Policy), supports breakfast and snack programmes (School Nourishment Programs), and links local farmers to schools to ensure adequate provision of fruits and vegetables to school children (Vegetable and Fruit Pilot Program). 45. At the national level,40 the 2010 Pan-Canadian Healthy Living Strategy includes a Declaration on Prevention and Promotion and a Framework for Action to Promote Healthy Weights (Curbing Childhood Obesity). The objective of the framework is to coordinate across the federal, provincial and territorial governments to ensure that combating childhood obesity is a priority for the respective ministers of health; to create environments that support physical activity and healthy eating by children; to identify, at an early stage. the risk of overweight and obesity in children; and to increase the availability and accessibility of nutritious foods, among others. 46. The Special Rapporteur commends the initiatives that have been adopted to date. They fall short, however, from what the urgency of the situation requires. Health professionals in Canada lament that no action is being taken to ban trans-fatty acids from diets, and that too little is done to discourage the consumption of foods high in saturated fats, sugar and/or sodium.41 Québec is the only province to have banned advertising directed towards children under 13 years of age,42 an initiative that may be largely symbolic until all provinces follow suit. This is not a minor issue in a broader right to food strategy: young children are particularly susceptible to advertising, and advertisers spend Can$2.9 billion annually to influence Can$20 billion worth of household purchases. The industry has taken some initiatives to pre-empt regulation (e.g., Advertising Standards Canada). But experts note that self-regulation attempts are “founded upon a fundamental conflict of interest,” as they seek to “advance the profitability of advertisers, while also protecting children’s health and well-being,” making it “unlikely that significant improvements could be implemented by industry itself or that they would be effective over the long term.”43 They conclude that a ban on advertising directed towards children is the most effective way of addressing the challenge. 47. There also appears to be a misalignment between the policies adopted in the health sector and other sectoral policies that could help curb obesity, particularly child obesity. This could include land zoning: people living in low-income communities often depend on grocery stores that provide a limited range of fresh foods or only sell such foods at high prices, squeezing the poorest households to purchase processed foods high in saturated fats, 40 41 42 43 14 Although not involving the Government of Québec. See also A/HRC/19/59, presenting similar conclusions which the Special Rapporteur arrived at independently. Sections 248 and 249 of Québec's 1980 Consumer Protection Act. Only Norway and Sweden have taken steps in this regard. B. Cook (for the Public Health Agency of Canada), “Policy Options to Improve the Children's Advertising Environment in Canada,” Feb. 2009, p. 4.