MEXICO CITY — Though still afflicted by large pockets of the malnourished poor, Mexico is fat and quickly getting fatter, its children gaining weight faster than anyone else in the country.
About 70 percent of Mexican adults are now overweight, according to government estimates, more than triple the number of three decades ago. Also, about a third of the country's schoolchildren and teenagers are overweight, making Mexicans the second-heaviest people on the planet, gaining quickly on their American neighbors.
With more people living in urban areas, and some with more money, Mexicans are eating more and exercising less. Forgoing the beans, tortillas, fruit and vegetables their grandparents ate, people flock to U.S.-style fast food.
Also, calorie-laden Mexican dishes once reserved for special occasions have become routine fare. Anything fried, packaged pastries, soft drinks and candy are widely available.
By some estimates, more than 200,000 people die each year in Mexico because of heart disease, diabetes and other diet-caused illnesses. Experts and government officials warn the problem shortly will prove overwhelming.
“It's an epidemic,” said physician Abelardo Avila, a leading researcher at Mexico's National Institute of Medical Science and Nutrition. “Millions of Mexicans are being put in danger, and the health system is not going to be able to keep up with it. There is nothing like this in the history of public health in Mexico.”
The blubber bubble mirrors that north of the Rio Grande, where Americans of every age and social strata grow heavier, but lower-income Mexican-Americans face an increased threat from fat because of their diets. Two-thirds of Texas adults are now overweight, and the proportion will grow to three out of four within a few decades, state officials say.
First lady Michelle Obama, who has claimed child nutrition as a personal cause, told a gathering of U.S. mayors last week, “None of us wants this kind of future for our kids or for our country.”
This week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said much the same thing, launching a national campaign against fat and calling on parents, teachers and the food industry to guide people to more healthful living.
“Only by the measure with which we as a society are capable of modifying our conduct will we be capable of reversing the growth of obesity,” Calderon said.
Difficult task
Avila and other experts say putting the population on a collective diet will be all but impossible without stricter controls on the food and advertising industries. With diet defined by commerce, malnutrition and obesity co-exist even in rural villages where people have less money to spend and do more physical labor, Avila said.
“We have exposed our population for three generations to a food industry that produces junk,” he said. “People are putting soft drinks in baby bottles. Malnourished children grow up to be fat teenagers.”
Officials and experts prescribe nutrition education and more exercise for Mexican schoolchildren. But the rules regulating the types and quantities of food that can be served in school lunchrooms are often ignored. Junk-food sellers set up stands outside most schoolhouses. And with both parents often working, students go home and fend for themselves for dinner.
“It's obvious the problem begins in the home,” said Arnulfo Madrigal, principal of the Porfirio Parra elementary school in Mexico City's south side. “If the child is left alone, they eat anything and they eat all day long.”
As they do every weekday, some 600 youngsters poured from Madrigal's school in the Mexican capital into the midday sun this week, scores of them heading straight for the sidewalk vendors outside.
Digging pesos from pockets, the children called out for their favorite snacks. Cheese puffs, candy bars, bubble gum, soft drinks, cookies and cakes all sold briskly.
“Children are incredible. They want to eat everything,” said Elizabeth Ortiz, 29, as she waited for her 8-year-old daughter to leave school. “It's up to parents to put a limit on them.”
HOUSTON CHRONICLE