science

Health Check

Health Check is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Health Check rather than just read about it. In short: Health Check was a certification program operated by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. First established in 1999, the program allowed food products that met predetermined nutritional guidelines to be marketed using a Health Check seal, identifying the product as being endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Key takeaways

Health Check belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Health Check to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Health Check from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Health Check was a certification program operated by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. First established in 1999, the program allowed food products that met predetermined nutritional guidelines to be marketed using a Health Check seal, identifying the product as being endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Distributors and restaurants were required to pay a fee to the Heart and Stroke Foundation to license the logo. The Health Check program was discontinued in 2014; the program had been criticized by University of Ottawa professor Yoni Freedhoff for endorsing products with high sugar and sodium contents as purportedly being healthy options.

Criteria Products that qualify for a Health Check symbol must meet category-specific nutrient criteria: The amount of nutrients required is determined from the Canada Food Guide.

total fat saturated fat trans fat fibre sodium sugar protein vitamins and minerals More specifically the criteria are based on nutrients Canadians should incorporate into their diet such as fibre and vitamins, and also those they should eat less of such as sodium, fat and sugar. The grocery items are divided into categories related to the Canadian Food Guide food groups which include: Vegetable and Fruit, Grain Products, Milk and Alternatives, Meat and Alternatives plus Oil and Fat. There is also a category for food that incorporate more than one of these called Combination Foods. The Health Check website has a list of criteria for the products, some examples include: Vegetable and Fruit Fruit juice must be:

made from 100% fruit juice with no added sugar an excellent source of vitamin C (50%) or vitamin A (25%) or folate (25%) or source of fibre (2 grams) Frozen and Canned Vegetables, both seasoned and sauced, must have

no more than 240 milligrams of sodium no more than three grams of fat Grain Products Breakfast cereal must have:

no more than three grams of fat at least two grams of fibre no more than 240 milligrams of sodium no more than six grams of sugar (excluding sugars from pieces of fruit) except if four grams or more of fibre no more than five percent of total fat from trans fat Milk and Alternatives Yogurt must have:

no more than two percent milk fat at least fifteen percent of the daily recommended calcium no more than 140 milligrams of sodium no added sugar Meat and Alternatives Plain meat or poultry must have:

no more than ten percent fat no added salt or sodium no more than five percent of fat from trans fat An independent company randomly evaluates the items, on an annual basis, to ensure that products indeed meet the criteria.

Criticism The Health Check program was criticized for giving misleading endorsements to unhealthy products. Obesity expert and University of Ottawa assistant professor Dr. Yoni Freedhoff was a notable critic of the program, having criticized it for endorsing products with high sugar and sodium contents. In 2012, he criticized the program's endorsement of products from Canadian fast food burger chain Harvey's with the seal. While endorsed for protein and vegetable contents and use of multi-grain buns, Freedhoff pointed out that the endorsed grilled veggie and grilled chicken burgers respectively contained 930 and 950 mg of sodium, "virtually half of recommended daily intake." The following year, he criticized the program for endorsing Sun-Rype's Fruitsource Fruit Bites product despite its high sugar content. He argued that "abusing the public's trust to sell candy to kids under the guise of fruit is not what the Heart and Stroke Foundation is supposed to be doing". These issues were a factor in the discontinuation of the program in 2014. Program director Terry Dean felt that the Health Check model had become outdated and "just didn’t allow us to have the footprint that we needed". He stated that the Heart and Stroke Foundation would shift its focus towards "broader" advocacy at the corporate and government levels.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Health Check

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Health Check claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Health Check before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Health Check ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Health Check

In research: Health Check appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Health Check in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Health Check is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1999 establishments in Canada, Food retailing, Nutrition campaigns, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Health Check outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Health Check in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Health Check means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Health Check out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Health Check in simple terms?

Why does Health Check matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Health Check?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Health Check.