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.
Naahhhh... They'll just become slow moving, HUGE, sweaty, targets. Easy to nab if the handcuffs are large enough.
LEO's will start using cable ties (not the tiny wire ties) in lieu of cuffs.
"*really* fattening Gringo food like cheese covered nachos, refried beans, burritos and huevos rancheros..."
I'll give you nachos as a gringo food (invented by a guy named Nacho in Eagle Pass, Texas for El Paso Diablo Games) and maybe even fajitas (which are not fattening, if done right), but the rest . . . .
I want to know what the heck they are doing crossing the border for jobs if they can afford to eat fast food so often that they blimp out. Those rich, fat, b_stards...
That one goes in the "quintessential dead" book. Man.
Rolling,
Rolling,
Rolling 'cross the river...
(With apologies to Credance Clearwater Revival)
chitlins and hog jowels....
question is what were YOU doing in a Toys R Us? I think you have a repressed attraction for that big black thang...
you need counseling. And if I am wrong, then you still need counseling because you will suffer from post traumatic 'big mama ass' syndrome..
well I am glad that there are some negative reprocussions to the blight that illegal immigration has cost us.
Bankrupt hospitals, overcrowded housing, schools, bloated welfare rolls, traffic congestion, just to mention a couple of problems associated with these parasitic people imposing themselves on us.
By the way they laugh at us for being so stupid to not do anything about it. I know, I live in a suburb outside of L.A., and see it every day.
Yum...I'm getting hungry.
Not to mention our sedentary lifestyle. You know all those siesta's of ours that the Mexican's have picked up on.
Actually, the siesta is really misunderstood.
Taking a nap in the hottest part of the day is just part of living in a hot climate with no AC.
Yes, you might take a break from 2-4, but you work until 8.
Yep, it's our fault that Mexicans are sedentary because they are sitting around waiting for their checks from the US to come through.
Aye, and at the end of the day, it’s the only thing that we really got that's paid for.
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