Some Canadians May Eat Themselves To Death Unless Oil Prices Rise, Doctor Warns
Late last month in “This Is Canada's Depression: Surging Crime, Soaring Suicides, Overwhelmed Food Banks ‘And The Worst Is Yet To Come,’” we took a sweeping look at what is truly pitiable situation in Alberta, the heart of the Canadian oil patch.
Roughly a third of provincial revenue is derived from “resources” which means that when oil prices collapsed, the territory plunged into recession. Oil and gas investment fell by more than a third in in 2015 and in its latest fiscal update, the government said it fully expects the weakness to carry into 2016.
Going into December, Canada was expected to lose as many as 100,000 oil and gas sector jobs in 2015. As the following chart from Bloomberg clearly demonstrates, the pain is especially acute in Calgary:
Needless to say, that kind of economic malaise has very real societal consequences.
In Alberta for instance, suicides were up 30% through June while violent crime is soaring. Property crime in Calgary, for example, rose nearly 40% during the first quarter.
Food bank use in the province jumped more than 23% in March (the last month for which there's data) and repo men say business is booming as Canadians struggle to make car payments amid the downturn.
Now, some medical professionals warn that the fallout from crude's historic plunge may well drive Albertans to eat themselves to death. "Alberta’s oil slump could have heavy, and unanticipated health consequences, experts are warning: a jump in obesity rates," the National Post writes, adding that "the sudden shock of job loss, debt and unemployment can trigger stress-related physiological responses that cause the body to store fat, slow the rate it burns calories and increase cravings for high-fat, calorie-loaded 'comfort foods.'"
“As medical professionals, we need to acknowledge that unemployment and the worries that come with it can make our patients susceptible to weight gain,” warns Dr. Arya Sharma, professor and chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta. Here's more from Sharma's recent blog post entitled "Will Low Oil Prices Lead To An Obesity Spike In Alberta?":
According to the Alberta economic dashboard, in October 2015, Alberta’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.6%, up from the 4.4% rate a year earlier and from last month’s 6.5% rate. The youth unemployment rate was 11.6%, up from last year’s 9.0% rate, while male unemployment increased precipitously from 3.6% last October to 7.3% this year.
As no one seems to be expecting a rosier future for this industry, it may well be that many who lost their jobs in the wake of mass oil patch
layoffs, will find the coming months (not to mention the festive season) both economically and emotionally challenging.
According to this report, suicide rates from January to June in Alberta this year are up 30% compared to the same period in 2014.
One challenge that may escape notice is the fact that this situation may also lead to significant weight gain in those affected.
Depression, anxiety, food insecurity, insomnia and simply being unable to afford healthy food are all important risk factors for weight gain.
Indeed it is hard to imagine how going from a high-paying job to being unemployed with little immediate hope of recovery will affect families.
As The Post goes on to note, " studies show that during the 2008 global financial meltdown families forced to cut back on food spending switched to cheaper, processed foods high in sugar and saturated fats [with] the hardest hit reducing their consumption of fruits and vegetables by as much as 20 per cent." To add insult to injury, "many in Alberta are losing their jobs just as healthy food becomes even pricier: The dollar’s plunge and California drought led to a sharp rise in the prices of many fruits and vegetables in 2015, and University of Guelph researchers, in their annual Food Price Report, predict prices will increase in 2016 by up to 4.5 per cent — meaning the average household will spend $345 more than in 2015 for the same food, according to a university release."
So in Alberta it's "feast or famine" in the most literal sense of the phrase as those who can still afford to buy food will drown their sorrows in cheap lunch meat and off-brand ice cream while the most hard hit members of society are forced to tap increasingly overwhelmed food banks.
"One Australian study found those hit hard in the last global recession had a 20-per-cent higher risk of becoming obese than those who escaped the worst of the slowdown," The Post recounts before noting that "already, nearly six out of 10 Albertans are overweight or obese." Here's the official data from the Health Quality Council of Alberta:
So quick Saudi Arabia, stop being so obstinate and cut production.
You've already destroyed Alberta's economy, do you want it to eat itself to death too?
(12 votes)
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"This is a big deal cuz dey has da Socialized Medicine insanity."
Please explain yourself. Are you comparing to USA's health care system and how well it does... not perform?
Just don't eat a bunch of carbs, especially the toxic bread. If you eat bacon or whatever try to get the uncured stuff. You need high quality fats and protein like good free range organic eggs. They cost an extra 1.30 here but you know what, those eggs are full of high quality protein and nutrients. If you buy the other ones you are just blowing your money and maybe even damaging your health.
Toxins make people store fat also. The body can't process too much at once and it will sequester it in fat stores away from vital organs. Contrary to the bullshit they spew cellulite is a toxic form of fat and it is not normal to have it. If people refrain from wheat it will usually go away entirely and yet they say it is incurable. Women have that everywhere now even when they are young, not good.
Never mind wheat. No corn syrup. That is the really bad stuff.
Alberta, where high school dropouts can earn $100k+ as a labourer.
No sympathy here. Anyone with a shred of intelligence saves and plans for a slowdown. These clowns were out buying brand new $80k pickups, 5th wheels, 4 wheelers, they thought the good times would never end!
That's what happens with highly available money in exchange of some sacrifices (long shifts, remote or isolated locations, outdoor, physical, etc), you want to enjoy it as soon as possible.
Depends on the person's mentality. I know old Italian guys, worth $100 Million+, still driving a broke down minivan to run his housing company. Won't spend a dime because they know money is hard to earn, and that the good times can stop in the blink of an eye.
Dumbasses spent it like it would never end. What they think, they were government workers?
Some where, some (like myself) are only just a worker in a city that got too rich too fast and missed the boat for buying a house, while rent (my building is owned by a Ontario based publically traded company) has gone up 60% in the past 6 years... 10% a year, not bad for a booming economy, but now will they drop the rent? If so... maybe you want to short Morgaurd.
Long gravy, cheese curds and potatoes
That's not a donair.
"... Roughly a third of provincial revenue is derived from “resources” which means that when oil prices collapsed ..."
Actually, provincial revenue is based on the price at the pump, which for some inexplicable reason is totally disconnected from the price at the well, at least in Canada. Nice try though.
Amazing, with all the ad crap on ZH they actually have a BEG button (Donate).
Wanna speed up your ZH pages ?
Paste these into your hosts file.
http://pastebin.com/VuAKFS3Y
Gee for a second there I thought the headline meant they were actually eating themselves.......glad it's not that bad. lol
Yet... I was sitting with an old fuck in his 70's today... great old guy that I've known for years he's buying ammo
I was sitting with Uncle Ray, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam Vet.....He bought the same AR15 I did, we compared notes on using iron sights vs red dot. 90 year old son of bitch out shot me.
The fat people will probably last longer in the prison camps than the skinny people.
Just remember that
90% of Canadians live somewhere other than Alberta. Its like saying "fishing is bad in Newfoundland, so Canada is in trouble". What a stupid article. Oil is a small part of the Canadian economy. Get your facts straight before you make ridiculous conclusions.
Just wait until the refugees begin to arrive and overwhelm the poutine relief system--you won't be chirping then
Man, you really haven't got enough info to be commenting on this thread. Poutine is a French thing. Copy and paste your comment on the next Quebec article. Maybe the Quebecois will be getting fatter than Albertans in a week or two.
The point, dipshit, is that the refugees would be LEAVING the area. Stopping by Sudbury or Thunder Bay might not be so attractive....unless nickel mining is really picking up.
Or to put it in terms even a dullard like you can understand: Why stop before poutine? Nothing worth stopping for.
I eat because I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy because I eat. It's a vicious cycle.
The reason that 48% of woman while only 30% oif men are considered "normal weight" is just because feminists have demanded redefining fat as being "normal" for women, but not for men. The BMI stadard for women is very relaxed compared to the BMI standard for men.
Hmm, sounds like microaggressive science.
Australians are not 1. lazy, 2. idiots who win the lottery, rather they live in a commodity rentier civilization where, if you want a career, marriage, a house, a family, social position, you have to join in. Australians have no post-Supercycle Plan B, any Australian who has, has been well and truly ridiculed and ostracised. Western Australia looks a lot like Alberta nowadays.
And we're still healthier than Americans
Just a thought.... it's kind of starting to make sense now. The war on the Keystone pipeline that Oba-mao has been waging to ensure that it does not get completed is a very strong tell of the overt now fully recognizable subversion he's completed. This one thing will destroy trillions in real value as well as create extreme hardship in both Canada and the US.
Think about it, between the US and Canada, we'd be drowning in the black goo. Now that he has effectively killed it for now, the Muslims are breaking the backs of America’s oil companies forcing them to founder.
This somehow fits hand in glove with his agenda that much is clear. AS our last major industrial output center comes to a grinding bankrupt halt, we lose our ability to self sustain as well as self produce without reliance on OPEC.
The strategy is clearly working as we are losing hundreds of thousands of jobs while creating bankruptcies and job loss as well as overall opportunity and extreme financial loss that will be felt for years to come. They wage this war silently through OPEC, break us, buy us all out and then gas goes to 5 bucks a gallon. Holy cow man is that it?
Then a series of foreign groups steps in and buy up all our infrastructure that we can no longer pay for as intended.
Genius actually and I'll bet they've already got the buyers lined up. And BTW, they will absolutely be hostile to American interests.
I think the silver lining here is this realization, changed my whole perspective on this issue and is now becoming very clear.
Occam’s razor; the simplest answer to a problem is usually the most correct.
Good morning all!
Shale well depletion happens fairly rapidly, while the oilsands projects have very long lifes and suffer little depletion. So Canada is likely to come out on top sooner or later. And the US is still a giant net importer of oil from Canada and elsewhere. So there is not a big glut of the stuff that can't be dealt with through a reduction in imports.
I read an internal report about 10 years ago showing the strategic reserves the US has both in the US as well as directly off shore. It's like 6x what Saudi Arabia has. The US reserves are huge to our advantage as I suspect that from what I read a deacade ago, SA was in its trwilight now nearly 4 decades ago.
Strategically, the US and Canada may very well hold combined the largest reserves left on the planet.
This alone could very well turn the tables. Maybe that's the point of this, make certain we lose our strategic advantage. Canada and the US really need to stick together on this one very tightly.
Yeah I don't get why Obama would want to block the Keystone pipeline. Makes zero sense to me. Does he hate America or something?
Without question he works to undermine and strip away and chip away from this nation daily. People can squeal how much a fool he is, he is however getting every damn thing he wants and has taken a wrecking ball to this nations infrustructure and national economic power
He's doubles the debt, he's cripled the economy, he's directly responsible for illegal wars, he strips our rights away under the guise of his liberal chicanery and all the while damaging every single thing he touches... as intended.
He has fulfilled his obligations to his master that's for damn sure.
Does he hate America... a resounding YES!
This is who Oba-mao is!
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
Amazing how Canadian voters choose socialist gewbermunts and how these socialists gummamints commit economic suicide over and over throughout the decades.
Majority of Canadians love their hockey, maple syrup and their economic suicide socialist gubbamants - all those decades of socialist gobbermints have trained them well.
The majority of Canadian voters are fucking retarded, or suicidal, or both.