Among the overweight population, 37% of people are overweight. (File photo)
Overweight people represent 65% of the population of Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
This proportion rises to 59% across the province. This is revealed by the new 2020-2021 Quebec Population Health Survey, published by the Quebec Institute of Statistics.
In the overweight population, 37% of people are overweight, which represents a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25.0 but less than or equal to 29.9. People suffering from obesity have a BMI greater than or equal to 30.0 and correspond to 28% of the citizens of Abitibi-Témiscamingue.
In general, excess weight has effects on physical health and it can also affect mental health in terms of self-perception, underlines Guillaume Beaulé, research officer for the Public Health Department at the Integrated Health and de services sociaux de l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue (CISSS-AT).
“It is certain that with such high numbers , it's a concern, but it's not something that just exploded. This is a case that has been followed for a long time. »
— Guillaume Beaulé, research officer at the Public Health Department
Nearly three out of four men and slightly more than one out of two women have a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25.0.
When the last survey, conducted in 2014-2015, the overweight rate among people over 18 was 60% for the region.
Asked whether the pandemic had a role to play in these data collected between November 2020 and December 2021, Guillaume Beaulé believes that it is not impossible that there have been impacts, but he adds that the experts are not unable to quantify them or know if it is a major effect or not.
In Abitibi-Témiscamingue, 18% of the population aged 15 and over smokes every day or occasionally, while for all of Quebec, it is more like 15%. Despite this gap, the proportion of smokers has decreased significantly.
What we notice, and this is perhaps the good news, is that compared to the 2014-2015 survey, the decrease that there has been in the region is significant. We went from 22% to 18%, underlines Guillaume Beaulé, who specifies that the downward trend is also observed elsewhere in Quebec.
Smoking is more popular among men than among women, both in the region and in the rest of the province.
A total of 2,206 people were interviewed in Abitibi-Témiscamingue as part of the Enquête québécoise sur population health 2020-2021.
