Evidentia

Joannie Rochette

The recent Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver were a defining moment for Canada, something like the 1967 World’s Fair – Montreal’s Expo 67. In Vancouver, Canada presented a fresh young face to the world. And our athletes took such obvious pleasure in mastering ice and snow, that it reconciled us – at least for this year – with our distressingly long winters.

In Vancouver, the Olympic organizers not only succeeded in solving some initial bugs and working around weather problems, but in maintaining a high level of professionalism.

Canada even raked in a world-record 14 gold medals – the most for any country in the history of the Winter Games.

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir

The Canadian athletes made it seem so simple. These attractive young athletes, representing an emerging generation, won on the skating rinks and ski hills, and although there were some outbursts of jingoism, which is out of character in this country, many spectators acknowledged the athletes’ achivements belonged to them alone. Of course, taxpayers funded the development of athletes, and will continue to do so. Athletic competition does create powerful national political symbols – as the Games both of Beijing and Vancouver attest. But the athletes are above all individuals, totally committed to perfecting themselves, sometimes since early childhood. How many personal sacrifices has this involved?

The most beautiful moment, for me, was when Quebec figure skater Joannie Rochette completed her performance, dedicating it to her mother, who had died suddenly of a heart attack just a few days before. This had nothing to do with pride of place, or the sort of staged pseudo-events that fill up so much space in the mass media. This was a rare moment, when a young woman expressed her love for a dearly departed mother, and also showed incredible force of character in overcoming her personal grief and focusing on her performance, to win a medal.

Joannie Rochette (AP photo)

When I think of these Winter Olympics, I can’t help thinking of health – the health of skaters and ski jumpers, who regularly risk severe injuries; the health of male hockey players who are repeatedly exposed to head injuries and concussions in the barbarity called the National Hockey League; the health of Olympic athletes in general, who are subject to severe stress and may experience depression if they fail; the health of athletes sometimes caught taking performance enhancing drugs, which can cause them liver damage and other problems; the Georgian luge racer Nodar Kumaritashviliski, who died in a horrendous and no doubt avoidable crash.

Canada wins another gold medal – but Canadians rank 10th out of 16 in terms of health indicators

So much attention is focused in the Olympics on the optimal health, strength and speed of athletes, and so much  on the prevention of health problems, from asthma to serious injury.

I wonder why promotion of health, and prevention of disease and injury, are not that important in Canadian society as a whole.

The Conference Board of Canada issued a report a few months ago on health performance. Canada comes 10th out of 16 industrialized countries, behind Japan, Switzerland and Italy, for example, but well ahead of Britain, Denmark and the United States. Of course we are in the midst of an epidemic of obesity, and this is reflected in mortality due to diabetes. Other worrisome areas, in terms of health, are mortality due to musculoskeletal diseases, and infant mortality. Moreover, areas where substantial improvements are needed are life expectancy, premature mortality, mortality due to cancer, mortality due to circulatory disease, mortality due to respiratory diseases, and mortality due to mental disorders. The recent announcement that tuberculosis rates among Canada’s Inuit are 185 times higher than the national average is one indication that health states vary radically from one population to another.

There seems to be a lack of awareness in this country, despite decades of awareness campaigns, about the role in good health of lifestyle choices, and therefore of promotion and prevention.

Vancouver

I am left wondering whether the Vancouver Games will have been a moment when  a country of couch potatoes was entertained by Canadian athletes symbolizing the youth of this country, as they got one gold medal after another. Or whether the Vancouver Games will mark a new awareness among every-day Canadians that our health depends, in large measure, on our own efforts.