Mexico is one of the world’s largest consumers of soft drinks, with an average annual per capita consumption of 163 liters, 40% more than the second-place United States. Obesity in children and adults is off the charts.
Yesterday (October 21), as Donald Trump caused a stir by wearing a McDonald’s uniform and frying French fries on camera, Mexico’s new public education secretary, Mario Delgado, said: announced The launch of a new national program that is unlikely to be replicated across borders anytime soon. The goal of the program, titled “Vida Saludable” (Healthy Living), is to improve the nutrition and overall health of Mexican schoolchildren in the face of the epidemic of childhood obesity and diabetes.
The program, enacted by the current AMLO administration on September 29, has four main pillars. Preventing the sale of ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks on school grounds. Promote the consumption of natural drinking water through the provision of fountains. Train educators in healthy nutrition. Promote sports and physical activity. Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration is only in its first month. said We also plan to train school cooperative directors to sell fruits, vegetables and seasonal foods.
6 month deadline
“Vida Saludable” will become mandatory for all state schools at all levels of the national education system on March 29th. Each school will have just six months to stop selling food and drinks with at least one health warning label at their snack stands. Otherwise, the administrator may be subject to heavy fines.
Of course, many children bring food from home, but the government say I have no intention of sanctioning parents who put junk food in their children’s lunch boxes. Instead, focus on explaining the harmful effects of these foods and the importance of eating a balanced diet.
However, implementation of “Vida Saludable” is expected to be difficult. In most of Mexico’s 255,000 public schools, students do not have access to free drinking water. Since 2020, only 4% have successfully installed drinking fountains. There are also questions about how the government will enforce the ban on setting up stalls of goods for sale to children during recess on sidewalks outside schools. Since this is Mexico, you can expect a vibrant black market. Komida Chatala Born in many schools. Enterprising students will definitely become rich.
Nevertheless, drastic measures are needed to combat skyrocketing levels of obesity and diabetes among Mexican children. In Mexico, it is estimated that 5.7 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 and 10.4 million adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 are overweight or obese. Furthermore, it is estimated that 7 in 10 school children and 5 in 10 adolescents are physically inactive, further exacerbating the country’s public health crisis.
Mexico’s Education Secretary blames these trends on “high consumption of sugar,” lack of physical activity, and the food policies of successive governments driven primarily by the profit-maximizing needs of the food industry.
“In the neoliberal era, they didn’t care about this situation. On the contrary, the companies that produced these junk foods promoted the sale of these products and even campaigns against hunger.” The neoliberal model has turned rights such as education, health, and food into commodities. ”
The role of NAFTA
Mexico has experienced an obesity epidemic since joining NAFTA with the United States and Canada in the early 1990s, and processed foods have become more readily available. as new york times reported in 2017 investigationthe commercial opening of North America accelerated the growth of convenience stores and US-owned fast food restaurants on Mexican soil. Additionally, trade liberalization has allowed “cheap corn, meat, high fructose corn syrup, and processed foods” to flow into Mexico from the United States.
Many people, especially those in low-income groups, are replacing primarily healthy traditional staple foods (such as corn tortillas, frijoles, and Jamaican water) with highly processed alternatives (such as hot dogs, nuggets, and soda). As a result, eating habits changed rapidly. While it’s true that Mexico had a burgeoning junk food industry before NAFTA, what followed was on a completely different scale.
Mexico is currently the world’s largest consumer of soft drinks, with an average annual per capita consumption of 163 liters, 40% more than the second-place United States with 118 liters. According to Yale University 2022 Study. Incredibly, there is one state in Mexico where the per capita consumption of Coca-Cola is five times the national average and 32 times the world average. Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexico.
“This is the epicenter of the soft drink consumption epidemic,” says Dr. Marcos Arana, a researcher at the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Medicine and Nutrition. said BBC Mundo:
Soft drinks have already become an essential part of daily life in this state, especially in the Los Altos region of Chiapas, where the majority of the population is indigenous and rural…
“In Chiapas, the availability and promotion of very cheap products in the face of vulnerable populations has created an addiction to necessities,” Arana said.
“Residents said that before the road to Tenejapa arrived, there were no diabetes or cardiovascular problems in Tenejapa. It all started when the road arrived in town and soft drinks and potato chips appeared. ,” says anthropologist and study co-author Jamie Page Priego.
Local organizations such as the Center for Ecology and Health Training for Farmers (CCESC), of which Alana is director, blame soft drink companies’ “aggressive” business practices and the easy availability of their products in the area to blame. It is pointed out that this is the main factor. excessive consumption.
“The most available product in Los Altos is Coca-Cola, but you have to walk further to buy tortillas and other things. It’s been reduced by 30%,” Alana said.
Sugar consumption has skyrocketed in Mexico, and waistlines have exploded. Over the past 20 years, the number of obese and overweight people has increased tripled, Currently, 75% of the population and 35% of children are overweight. Not only obesity but also changes in eating habits contributed Diabetes is the second leading cause of death after heart disease and after cancer. In 2016, an epidemiological emergency was declared. declared Due to the high rates of obesity and diabetes in this country.
Food labeling, ban on anime food packaging…
Vida Saludable is not the first step the Mexican government has taken to improve the eating habits of Mexicans. In October 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the AMLO government passed one of the strictest food labeling laws on the planet. From that day forward, the packaging of every soft drink can or bottle, bag of potato chips and other processed foods will be marked with the words “excess sugar,” “excess calories,” “excess sodium,” or “excess trans fat.” A black octagonal label must be affixed warning that Bold letters you can’t miss.
More than half of Mexico’s food and drink products now carry nutritional warning labels, more than any other country in Latin America. The government has also banned food packaging with cartoons aimed at children.
Mexico has banned mascot cartoons from appearing on unhealthy food products aimed at children. Can you see the difference? pic.twitter.com/JYgmDh9fLu
— El Susto (@ElSustoMovie) June 23, 2021
The big food lobby, of course, tried to block both of these measures, just as it tried to block “Vida Saludable.” The American Institute for the Protection of Intellectual Property and the Mexican Institute for the Protection of Intellectual Property sued, arguing that the food labeling is unconstitutional and violates regulations signed by Mexico at the international level, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. It also appears to be used in other jurisdictions that have passed food labeling laws.
For almost four years, the lawsuit continued. Of the more than 100 injunctions filed by companies including Coca-Cola Femsa, PepsiCo, Grupo Bimbo, Hershey’s, Santa Clara, Heldes, Alimentos del Fuerte, Nutrisa, and McCormick, three were brought before the Supreme Court’s Second Chamber. To its credit, the SCJN has ruled by unanimous vote that front-of-pack labeling of food and non-alcoholic beverages is an effective means of protecting people’s health and consumers’ right to information. did.
Chile was the first Latin American country to seriously address its population’s addiction to junk food, sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods. In 2016, it passed strict food labeling laws. Like Mexico, it also restricted cartoon food packaging, banned the sale of unhealthy foods in schools, restricted television advertising, and banned promotional toys. Over the next two years, sales of sugar-sweetened beverages in Chile fell by 23%. According to one studythe labels made people 11% less likely to choose sugary breakfast cereals and about 24% less likely to choose sugary juices.
As I wrote in 2020 wolf streetit was one of the junk food industry’s worst nightmares. The fact that Chile, a country with a population of approximately 20 million people, was committing such acts was enough to be egregious. The same thing happens in Mexico, which has nearly seven times the population of Chile, consumes more processed food than any other country in Latin America, and consumes more carbonated drinks per capita than any other country on earth. The prospect is upsetting. Global food and beverage companies:
The US, EU, Canada and Switzerland are home to some of the world’s largest food companies. pause or derail new law. But it was no use. The arrival of Covid-19 has proven particularly deadly for people with three comorbidities: obesity, diabetes and hypertension, reinforcing the government’s assertiveness and resolve.
(Government Labeling Law) has raised concerns that it may be overstepping its limits. Business lobby group Coparmex said They argue that banning the sale of junk food and sugary drinks to minors is a frontal attack on commercial freedom and freedom of choice. It will also have serious economic implications for businesses in the retail industry. However, these impacts are dwarfed by the economic and health impacts of the obesity epidemic.
Since 2020, many other countries in Latin America have introduced strict front-of-pack labeling laws, including Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. According to Mexican online news websites crime embargoMexico’s labeling laws had two main observable effects. First, companies like Bimbo, Nestlé, and Kellogg’s have reformulated their products to reduce the concentration of ingredients containing excess sugar, fat, or sodium. The second is testimonials from consumers who claim to have reduced their consumption of products with health warnings on the packaging.
The study, published in June, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity It suggests that this policy appears to be bearing fruit (just kidding). The study authors asked people aged 14 and older to self-report changes in their shopping habits one year after food labeling laws went into effect. More than a third of young people and almost half of adults said labeling systems had reduced their purchases of a variety of unhealthy foods. Additionally, adults who reported drinking more water and less sugar-sweetened beverages said food labels were the main reason for this decision.
The junk food industry spent years lobbying furiously in Mexico’s Congress to prevent the introduction of strict and clear front-of-pack labeling, and once it was finally introduced, it took another four years to block it. Is it any surprise that efforts were made to overturn the U.S. corn and GMO lobby using ISDS to prevent Mexico from banning the use of GMO corn for direct human consumption? Lobbying groups will no doubt try to do the same with Mexico’s Vida Saludable program. These days, it’s not easy for a country to straighten out its diet, especially when its immediate neighbor is the United States of America.
