Mexico Now More Obese Than America
July 9, 2013Mexico Slightly Edges Ahead Of America As The Most Obese Country
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reports that Mexico now has a 32.8 percent adult obesity rate which is slightly above America's 31.8 percent rate.
With approximately 70 percent of Mexican adults being overweight or obese and diabetes taking the lives of over 70,000 people a year there, it should come as no surprise that Mexico has now, even if just slightly, taken the title of "most obese" from the United States.
In just a decade, Mexico's childhood obesity rates have tripled and currently there are more than 400,000 new cases of diabetes being diagnosed every year. Reports state that almost one in six Mexican adults suffer from diabetes brought on by obesity making the disease the country's number one killer with heart and other weight related comorbidities close behind.
Experts have been warning Mexico about it's growing epidemic and two years ago the FAO called on Mexico to consider the obesity epidemic a national emergency.
One such expert, physician Abelardo Avila of Mexico's National Nutrition Institute has been taking issue with anti-poverty programs set forth by Mexican authorities. He blames the programs for putting cash into the hands of rural families and feels that too often money is being spent on unhealthy foods rather than nutritious foods.
"The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese," says Avila. "In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. It's a very serious epidemic."
Sedentary lifestyles, the high cost of more nutritious foods, and the popularity and availability of US fast food restaurants and cheaper junk food snacks have also come in to play according to experts.