Posted on 11/29/2005 1:55:33 PM PST by Graybeard58
Mexico probably will surpass the U.S. in obesity rates for the first time next year as the Latin American nation adopts the fast food and sedentary lifestyles of its neighbor to the north.
The brewing health crisis prompted Mexico's congress this month to move toward making school exercise mandatory. Mexico City has called in a Texas doctor to wean kids off pizza and fries, while Health Ministry ads warn fat can lead to diabetes and heart disease.
"Obese and overweight adults went from nowhere in 1990 to 62 percent in 2000," said Barry Popkin, an economist and nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, citing a Mexican government study. "You are talking about an astronomical increase coming at a very fast rate and it's continuing."
Weight-related illnesses pose a growing threat to Latin America's second-largest economy, said Juan Rivera, who's leading Mexico's second national obesity study at the National Institute of Public Health, due in 2006. Diabetes alone, the most common disease associated with excess weight, cost Mexico as much as $15.1 billion in 2000, mostly in reduced productivity and lost wages because of premature death, according to a World Health Organization estimate.
A report this year by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development compared obesity rates among OECD member nations. Only the U.S., where 66 percent of people are overweight or obese, ranks higher than Mexico, the group reported, using the 2000 data from Mexico and 2002 numbers from the U.S.
"The causes of death in Mexico have changed from infectious to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular illnesses and diabetes," said Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, president of the Heath Committee of Mexico's Congress. "In most cases these diseases share the common cause of obesity."
Incomes in Mexico have grown as the economy expands. Gross domestic product rose 3.3 percent in the third quarter from the same period a year ago. Average salaries, in inflation-adjusted terms, have climbed to 188.74 pesos ($17.80) per day from 146.19 pesos per day four years ago.
Mexicans' growing weight is largely a byproduct of rising consumer spending aided by U.S. free trade, said Rivera, a nutritionist. A North American lifestyle that features cars and television accounts for much of that, he said. At the same time, the spread of fast food and soft-drink consumption in place of traditional beans and tortillas has paralleled the typical waistline expansion, he said.
The first Mexican franchise of Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's Corp. opened in 1985 and there are now 304 outlets, according to the company's Web site.
Miami-based Burger King's first restaurant opened in 1991 and has 260 sites. Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum! Brands, Inc., which operates Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC franchises, had 467 restaurants in Mexico at the end of 2004, according to a company report.
Mexico is the world's leading per-capita consumer of Coca- Cola, according to the World Health Organization.
In 1998 Mexicans drank more than 400 milliliters per day of the Coca-Cola Co. soft drink, according to a report by the organization, up from 275 milliliters in 1992.
A government study of income and spending showed Mexicans, whose traditional diet is based on corn and beans, spent 29.3 percent less on fruits and vegetables in 1998 than in 1984. In the same period, soft drink purchases increased 37.2 percent.
Researchers conducting the nation's second study on obesity, due to be published next year, said the percentage of obese and overweight Mexicans probably rose as high as 85 percent of women and 75 percent of men -- possibly the highest rates of any major economy.
There you have it - It's our fault.
Bush's fault.
Yes, that all-American diet of refried beans with lard and tortillas soaked in lard is what is doing it.
"Bush's fault."
Bush's Re-Fried Beans fault, maybe.
the coyotes soon will have to put a surcharge on their services to cover the increased cost of fuel and fat mexicans
Well, it does need that "mexican" flavor.
Better not tell them how to mix a margarita.
What... They imported Michael Moore???
They'll work it off on that cross-border sprint.
I don't know if it's relevant, but we live in a farming community, where half the residents of the town are Mexicans (or Mexican-Americans, or illegals...no one really knows). The local high school is on the next block from where we live, so we are "treated" every day with a parade of students heading to school, then off to lunch, then back from lunch. First, the vast majority of the Mexican kids are obese. Secondly, all they seem to eat is cr@p (judging from the discarded food/candy wrapper they leave littered on our lawn). Thirdly, the bad habits begin early in life, as many pre-school-aged kids we see in town are also grossly overweight. I don't know if there's a cultural factor here, or what, but this isn't because of "US free trade policies."
Yet as much as we suck, we apparently have awesome mind control that totally negates the free will of stupid people in other nations.
So the Mexicans ignore their own superior diet (as long as you don't drink the water, amigo) to bloat up on ours.
And the French ignore their own superior cinema (if you think that wart-headed Gerard Depardieu is sexy and mimes have something meaningful to express) for our brutish film efforts.
And Germans toss their peculiar death-opera music efforts aside for the musical glory that is Hasselhoff.
Evil us. Well, Hasselhoff anyway.
I feel like Mike Torrez, the Boston Red Sox pitcher who served up the fastball that Bucky F*ckin Dent popped for a homer to allow the Yankees to win the divisional title. He bore this burden for a long time. Years later, Torrez was announcing the ballgame when the Bosox were playing the Mets in the World Series. In game 6, Mookie Wilson hit a feeble grounder to the gimpy Bill Buckner at first base. As the ball rolled through Buckner's legs and into right field, the winning runned scored. The first thing Torrez says in the Red Sox announcing booth is "I'm off the hook." LOL. That's how I feel today. Thank you Mexico, we're off the hook.
Maybe they need to cut back on siestas?
unfortunately for the mexicans, its the perfect storm of fattening Gringo food like Pizza, kielbasa, Gyros and fried Dim-Sum along with the *really* fattening Gringo food like cheese covered nachos, refried beans, burritos and huevos rancheros...
Some Americans paid other Americans not to do those jobs Americans won't do.
>>"wean kids off of pizza and fries">>>>
And put them back on bean, tortillas and tamales, I guess. That's an improvement. NOT!
Next up, Mexico city will have gyms and spas playing mariachi music while you lift.
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