Mexico's War on Obesity: National Ban on Junk Food Sales in Schools

Mexico, the world's leading consumer of soft drinks, is taking a drastic step to combat its high rates of child and adult obesity. On October 21, Mario Delgado, Mexico's new Secretary of Public Education, announced a nationwide program called "Vida Saludable" (Healthy Life). The program aims to improve the nutrition and overall health of Mexican school children amid an obesity and diabetes epidemic.

"Vida Saludable": A New Approach to Nutrition in Schools

The "Vida Saludable" program, enacted by the recently departed AMLO administration on September 29, has four main objectives. These include preventing the sale of ultra-processed food and sugary drinks in schools, promoting the consumption of natural drinking water through water fountains, training educators in healthy nutrition, and promoting sports and physical activity. The Claudia Sheinbaum government, which has just begun its term, has also stated it will train school cooperative heads to sell fruits, vegetables, and seasonal foods.

A Six-Month Deadline

"Vida Saludable" will become mandatory for all state schools at all levels of the national education system on March 29. Schools will have just six months to end all sales of foods and drinks that have at least one health warning label from their snack stands, or their administrators could face steep fines. While many children bring food from home, the government has stated it will not sanction parents who put junk food in their children's lunchboxes. Instead, it will focus on explaining the harmful effects of these foods and the importance of eating a balanced diet.

Challenges in Implementing "Vida Saludable"

Implementing "Vida Saludable" may prove to be a difficult task. Most of Mexico's 255,000 public schools do not provide free drinking water to students. Since 2020, only 4% of them have managed to install drinking fountains. There are also doubts about how the government will enforce the ban outside schools, where vendors set up stalls of goods to sell to kids during break time.

Obesity and Diabetes: A Public Health Crisis

Mexico's high levels of child obesity and diabetes necessitate drastic measures. An estimated 5.7 million Mexican children between the ages of 5 and 11 and 10.4 million adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 are overweight or obese. Furthermore, an estimated 7 out of 10 schoolchildren and 5 out of 10 adolescents are physically inactive, exacerbating the country's public health crisis. Mexico's secretary of education attributes these trends to the "high consumption of sugars", lack of physical activity, and the food policies of previous governments, which prioritized the profit-maximizing needs of the food industry.

The Impact of NAFTA

Obesity in Mexico reached epidemic proportions after it joined NAFTA with the United States and Canada in the early 1990s, which made processed food more readily available. As reported by the New York Times in a 2017 investigation, the commercial opening of North America turbocharged the growth of convenience stores and US-owned fast food restaurants in Mexico. Trade liberalization also allowed "cheap corn, meat, high-fructose corn syrup, and processed foods" from the United States to flood into Mexico. As a result, many people, particularly those on lower incomes, replaced largely healthy traditional staples with highly processed alternatives. Mexico is now the leading consumer of soft drinks in the world with an average consumption of 163 litres per person per year — 40% more than the US in second place, according to a 2022 study from the University of Yale.

"Vida Saludable" and Previous Government Actions

"Vida Saludable" is not the first step Mexico's government has taken to try to improve Mexicans' food habits. In October 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the AMLO government passed one of the strictest food labelling laws on the planet. The law requires all soft drinks cans and bottles, bags of chips, and other processed food packages to bear black octagonal labels warning of "EXCESS SUGAR", "EXCESS CALORIES", "EXCESS SODIUM" or "EXCESS TRANS FATS". The government also banned cartoon food packaging aimed at children. Despite the efforts of Big Food lobbies to block these measures, they were ultimately unsuccessful. The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) ruled that front-of-pack labelling for food and non-alcoholic beverages is a valid measure that protects people's health and consumers' right to information.

Impact of Food Labelling Laws

Since 2020, many other countries in Latin America have introduced strict front-of-package food labelling laws, including Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. The labelling legislation in Mexico has led to the reformulation of products by companies such as Bimbo, Nestlé, and Kellogg’s, in an attempt to lower the concentration of ingredients that have excess sugar, fat, or sodium. Consumers have also reported reducing their consumption of products that bear health warnings on their packaging. A study published in June in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity suggests that the policy appears to be effective. The study’s authors asked people aged 14 or over to self-report any perceived changes in their shopping habits a year after the food labelling law came into effect. More than a third of young people and almost half of adults said the labelling system had led them to reduce their purchase of various unhealthy foods.

Resistance from the Junk Food Industry

The junk food industry spent years lobbying in Mexico’s Congress to block the introduction of strict and clear front-of-package food labels, and once they were finally introduced spent another four years trying to get them overturned. The lobbies will likely attempt to do the same with Mexico’s "Vida Saludable" program.

Bottom Line

Mexico's war on obesity is a significant step in addressing a significant public health crisis. The "Vida Saludable" program, along with previous government actions, demonstrates a commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of its citizens. However, the road to change is fraught with challenges, including resistance from the food industry and the need for widespread societal change. What are your thoughts on Mexico's approach? Do you think it will be effective in curbing obesity rates? Share this article with your friends and let's start a conversation. Don't forget to sign up for the Daily Briefing, which is every day at 6 pm.