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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMexico replaces US as world’s fattest nation
MEXICO CITY, Mexico Modern Mexicans urban lifestyle, rising incomes and myriad consumption vices have fed a seemingly endless struggle thats killing thousands more of them each year.
Yep, were talking the desperate Battle of the (body) Bulge.
Even as nearly half its people are poor and as officials launch a national anti-hunger campaign, Mexico by some accounts recently has replaced the United States as the chubbiest of the globes larger countries.
Diabetes and cardiovascular ills spike, plus sizes cram clothing racks and Mexicans keep eating, eating, eating. While cutting across class lines, the crisis disproportionately hits the poor and the young, malnourishment and obesity stalking them in tandem.
The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese, said physician Abelardo Avila with Mexicos National Nutrition Institute. In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. Its a very serious epidemic.
About 70 percent of Mexican adults are overweight, a third of them very much so. Childhood obesity tripled in a decade and about a third of teenagers are fat as well. Experts say four of every five of those heavy kids will remain so their entire lives.
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/08/mexico_replaces_us_as_worlds_fattest_populous_nation_partner/
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Is there anything we are still number one at, other than gun ownership per capita?
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)I've been travelling to Mexico for decades. You didn't use to see obese people there. That starting changing after NAFTA passed, and all the American fast food franchises started popping up everywhere. And the guys who used to take a bunch of tortillas to eat at lunch are now taking those sodium-laced packages of ramen noodles.