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Limiting the Junk Food Banquet |
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By Diego Cevallos - IPS/IFEJ*
Latin
America is waging its first wars against uncontrolled advertising
and consumption of junk food.
MEXICO CITY, Apr 23 (IPS/IFEJ) - Amidst a little
pushing and shoving, dozens of girls and boys order fried potatoes,
soft drinks, hotdogs and candy at the shop in a private school in
Mexico. Similar scenes can be found across Latin America, where
junk food sales are strong.
But gradually, in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Panama
and Mexico, legislative bills or initiatives of governments, cities
and parents' associations are making inroads in making junk food
a little harder for children to get their hands on.
In the same school where the children can buy foods rich in fats
and sugar, poor in nutrients, also for sale are fruits and vegetables.
But almost nobody orders those.
This reporter followed the programming on two Mexican television
channels between 2:00pm and 6:00pm and found that, in more than
100 advertisements shown by each station, at least half were for
junk food.
In the United States, ads for candy, hamburgers, sugary breakfast
cereals and the like, represent 34 percent of all commercials that
children and adolescents see on TV, according to a study sponsored
by the U.S.-based Kaiser Family Foundation.
The World Health Organization says this type of food contributes
to the problem of obesity, which affects more than 20 percent of
people over age five in the region.
And, according to WHO, the leading risk factors for non-contagious
diseases -- responsible for 60 percent of the 56 million deaths
worldwide each year -- are lack of consumption of fruits and vegetables,
excess weight and obesity, lack of physical activity and tobacco
use.
The U.S. American Heart Association says that Latin America stands
out from other regions for having the highest proportion of heart
attack risks as a result of high blood pressure, excess abdominal
fat and permanent stress.
Brazil's National Health Monitoring Agency in November launched
a public debate on regulations that would ban radio and TV advertising
for soft drinks and foods with high content of sugar, saturated
fat or salt. The government is expected to issue a decree on such
measures in late June.
Regulating advertising "is interesting", because it affects "innocent
consumers" like children, and is an essential measure for containing
the problem of childhood obesity, says Mariana del Bosco Rodrigues,
a nutritionist with the Brazilian Association for the Study of Obesity.
Some city governments have banned sales of candy near or within
schools. Others have improved what is offered at school snack time,
such as fruit, vegetables and natural juices, she said in an interview.
Murilo Diversi, a food expert at IDEC, the Brazilian consumer defense
institute, said that, luckily for his country, junk food advertising
can be regulated by decree.
Between the periods 1974-75 and 2002-03, the proportion of Brazilian
males between ages 10 and 19 who were overweight increased from
3.9 percent to 17.9 percent, while for females in the same age group
it rose from 7.5 percent to 15.4 percent.
In Mexico, obesity among children ages five to 11 jumped 40 percent
between 1999 and 2006. In that same period, the waistlines of women
of childbearing age increased an average of 10 cm. Furthermore,
10 percent of Mexican adults are diabetic, and 30 percent of children
have hypertension, according to official figures.
"The obesity epidemic is out of control. One of the most important
causes is the change in eating habits and the lack of regulation
of junk food advertising," says Alejandro Calvillo, director of
the Mexican non-governmental organization El Poder del Consumidor
(Power of the Consumer), interviewed for this article.
According to the government's National Institute of Public Health,
in the last 14 years the consumption of soft drinks increased 60
percent in Mexico, the world's second leading market for such beverages,
after the United States.
Mexico's indigenous families, which tend to be the poorest, spend
an average of two dollars per week on soft drinks and less than
one dollar on milk, says the state-run Integral Family Development
agency.
Despite pressure from ConMéxico, an association of the leading manufacturers
of junk food, national lawmakers have been studying since 2006 a
bill for restricting junk food ads. There is also a bill for labeling
such products with warnings about their lack of nutritional value.
But the bills have run into some legislative roadblocks, and some
lawmakers have reported meddling and even threats from manufacturers.
Upholding the discourse of snack food and beverage manufacturers
in other countries, Ignacio Lastra, spokesman of the Mexican National
Chamber of Industry, declared that a law will not resolve the obesity
problem.
Lastra believes that families should instruct their children about
adequate nutrition.
In the WHO's "Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health",
governments are urged to create new taxes to discourage manufacturing
food with little nutritional value and to limit advertising for
such food that is aimed at children.
Doctor Mercedes Schnell, of the Venezuelan non-governmental Bengoa
Foundation for Food and Nutrition, believes that banning junk food
and related advertising is no guarantee of success.
It is best to educate the consumers, she said in an interview.
But, like most experts, she recognizes that "poor nutrition and
excess weight and obesity among children is increased by the greater
availability of fast food, outside the home, full of saturated fats
and sugars and low in dietary fiber."
Though for now there aren't any laws being considered for junk food
sales or advertising, school officials have banned consumption in
many schools.
Local governments and family associations in Argentina, Brazil and
Mexico decided not to wait for national regulations and have designed
their own programs for limiting the availability of junk food in
and around schools.
In Chile, senators of the co-governing Party for Democracy are considering
a bill to regulate the manufacture of low-nutrition foods and restrict
its sale in and near schools.
Since 1997, a ban has been in effect in Panama on the distribution
of fried foods and soft drinks in schools. But officials there admit
it is difficult to enforce it.
Proper food choice, along with public policies in education, health,
sports and advertising, could reverse the trend towards obesity,
diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, says Bosco Rodrigues.
* Reporting contributed by from Mario Osava
in Brazil and Humberto Márquez in Venezuela. This story is part
of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS -- Inter
Press Service -- and IFEJ, the International Federation of Environmental
Journalists. |
