ABSTRACT
Child obesity is an urgent public health issue in Canada and other wealthy countries. The World Health Organization defines obesity as the accumulation of excess fat to the point where it has adverse impacts on health [1]. Approximately one third of Canadian children between the ages of 5 to 17 years could be considered overweight or obese, with some populations at an even higher risk [2]. Aboriginal children are disproportionately affected by obesity, as they are twice as likely to be classified as obese compared to their non-Aboriginal Canadian counterparts [3, 4]. This is true for children of each of the three Aboriginal groups identified in the 1982 Constitution Act-First Nations, Métis and Inuitwhich together make up about four per cent of the Canadian population or 1.5 million people [5], and for those living in urban areas as well as in rural or
remote First Nations or Inuit communities. Although obtaining a comparable measurement of child obesity among Aboriginal children can be problematic, an estimated 20 % of First Nations children living off reserve1 (aged 5 to 17), and 16.9 % of Métis children could be classified as obese [4], compared with 11.7 % of Canadian children aged 5 to 17 [2].
