Mexico has now taken the top spot from the US

Mexico is now number one in obesity. Seems like that happened awfully quickly.

must be all the tubby ole gringos retiring here

tipped the scales?

It's the vast encroachment of fast food chains and corner stores. Fresh fruit used to be 5 pesos on the corner... now it's cheaper to buy a Coke and candy.

Geez M. .......coca cola and candy have been around here longer than me by a country mile, but the number or fruits and vegetables available in either the supermercados or tianguis has doubled or tripled. 30 years ago, you couldn't buy a decent apple, plum, or pear.
Broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts?...no way.
No body sold or gave away bottled or purified water in convenience stores except for the big garrafones...so if you wanted to quench your thirst away from home, it was refrescos.
No pasteurized, refrigerated milk like today...only the fresh raw stuff that came around every morning.
And finally, how many fast food chains are you talking about around Lake Chapala?...Subway?  Probably healthier than oil or lard drenched tacos that was the order of the day.

Can't see what you are saying.

Just another factor here at lakeside.....
In the 70's and 80's there were probably about 2 or 3 vehicles for every square block...nowadays, it seems there are 2 or 3 for every family.
Sedentary lifestyle and a tv in every house hasn't helped keep waistlines down.
The Mexican diet has always consisted of a lot of corn and corn products which is high carb and OK when you burn them up.

It"s about tortillas. The average Mx citizen eats 1 # of tortillas/ day. Think about it. That's a lot of tortillas. You know what a # of butter feels like, you can hold it in the palm of Ur hand and feel the heft. Now think about nutritional value. Native Mx corn has lots of nutritional value (gluten free), vits., minerals, etc. Combined with the trinity, beans and squash, it's a complete diet. US AGRO, Monsanto and their ilk, through NAFTA, has forced GMO corn and GMO wheat (flour tortillas - YUCK) - down the throats of Mexicans. No nutrition and they are pissed for tons of reasons. Meanwhile - pass the "Twinkies" . Sad.

Less walking more car/truck/bus activity.  Isn't Mexico #1 in coke consumption per
person? Look at Diabetes rates here...scary.

Z

kipissippi wrote:Mexico is now number one in obesity.  Seems like that happened awfully quickly.

Ummm...........  guess it is all about what "now" means.  When information like this hits the news, it seems that it may be so seriously edited that it doesn't mean much except is good filler on the for-profit news.

So here is what made the news:

• The FAO last month reported (PDF) Mexico has a 32.8 percent adult obesity rate -- just above America's 31.8 percent -- blaming increasingly industrialized agricultural production for a worldwide epidemic of both obesity and malnutrition. The Mexican rate may pale beside tiny, heavyweight countries like the Cook Islands, but it ranked Mexico the fattest, populous nation.
  

Sure sounds like now is really in the present.  But since I think lots of statistics are just crap - plus I had just recently witnessed an amazing number of young obese Floridians waddling around, I decided to look at the source document.  

This study was done in 2008 folks.   (page 77)

http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3300e/i3300e.pdf

I have no idea who is number 1 now - but on a recent trip NOB I did notice that 20 ounce bottles of coke and pepsi are now the norm next to the check counters in the display cases.  So I checked the serving size - on the coke site, it says a 16 ounce bottle has 2 servings - that is, one serving is 8 ounces.  Interesting - now the bottles are 20 ounces and 1 serving according to the same site.  Guess they are rewriting food nutrition guidelines to suit their product size. http://productnutrition.thecoca-colacompany.com/products/coca-cola?packagingId=15399

In any event - it is an extremely serious problem - who knows what the number 1 country is at this moment in time.

slainte39 wrote:Geez M. .......coca cola and candy have been around here longer than me by a country mile, but the number or fruits and vegetables available in either the supermercados or tianguis has doubled or tripled. 30 years ago, you couldn't buy a decent apple, plum, or pear.
Broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts?...no way.
No body sold or gave away bottled or purified water in convenience stores except for the big garrafones...so if you wanted to quench your thirst away from home, it was refrescos.
No pasteurized, refrigerated milk like today...only the fresh raw stuff that came around every morning.
And finally, how many fast food chains are you talking about around Lake Chapala?...Subway?  Probably healthier than oil or lard drenched tacos that was the order of the day.

Can't see what you are saying.

We still don't buy apples, plums and pears on the corner. We get seasonal fruit, and I assume all over the country, they always have. And the article is about Mexico, not Lake Chapala, and one can only assume every good-sized city has McDonalds, KFC, and so on. There is also more access to grocery stores selling fast food items like frozen, processed foods full of sugar and tasty corn chemicals. And you said it: tacos and tortillas. Long a staple, full of oil or lard. All these things have pushed the country over the age over recent decades.

And a lot of this junk is much more accessible everywhere. Every dinky pueblo I drive through on the way to the States has some kind of corner store; Oxxo apparently reached 10,000 stores in Mexico last year.

The friend of a friend said he lost 30 pounds on "The Oxxo Diet." Asked what that was, he said, "If it is sold at Oxxo, I don´t eat it." When you think about it, not a bad plan.

will carlos slim have to change his name ??

It is more than tortillas , it is the amount of fat and sugar eaten with tortilla and the lack of activity. There is a perfect exemple of that in Chiapas where the indigenous in the highlands are not fat and the people in Tuxtla are.
The diet among the indigenous in the Highlands consists of tortilla on the comal no fat, beans cooked without fat sometimes for people with money they add a little chorizo but it is a treat and added to spice up the beans only, chilis, lots of greens, mushrooms and once in a while chicken, lots of corn cooked on the fire as well and eaten without fat,protein comes from insects , snails and eggs lots of those and cheese . Once in a great while some beef especially for fiesta when an animal is killed and some pork as well once in a while. Many people are anemic . Most of them do not have refrigeration and many of them are lactose intolerant. It is pretty comon to see infant drink cafe de olla...Cakes are for special occasion , seasonal fruit is also eaten as well as berries and unfortunately many drink sodas but they also walk everywhere..They are physically active and it is unusual to see fat people.
In Tuxtla people are fat as a rule, they have delicious street food and can be seen eating at all times  in the day.They use lard ,much more meat much less veggies , eat cakes , bread on a daily bais  and drink lots of sodas they walk much less and more people have cars. There is a noticeable difference between the highland people and the low land´s.
 
When highland people come from their villages and move to a city, their health deteriorate seriously as they start eating lots of sabritas and other junk food as well as drink way more soda. Many organizations tied up to coops have classes to teach the highland women to eat healthy. The health of indigenous moving to town is  a disastre and diabetes shoots right up through the roof. Fruit in the city is considered a luxury by many.

I rarely buy anything in a box...

If Mexico had more water and public potable drinking fountains it would help reduce the need for refrescos, but that's not the case. At least oxxo sells individual bottles of drinking water.

Another noticeable newbie thing to me is....
Walmart in SAT has a salchichicha, hot dog, chorizo, various sausage counter half a store length long filled with every conceivable sausage ever made.
I can only imagine the amount of this kind of stuff that is sold in one week there or they wouldn't have the inventory they do. I usually shop in the evening so all I see are Mexican locals (hardly ever foreigners buying these products). 30, 40 years ago it was hard to find a hot dog of any kind.

Can't be good for weight control.
Oh yes, couldn't Bimbo be as guilty as Coca Cola, Maseca, or FUD.

slainte39 wrote:
Oh yes, couldn't Bimbo be as guilty as Coca Cola, Maseca, or FUD.

FUD;acronym for "fino,unico y delicioso"...

viajero wrote:

slainte39 wrote:
Oh yes, couldn't Bimbo be as guilty as Coca Cola, Maseca, or FUD.

FUD;acronym for "fino,unico y delicioso"...

¡Gorditas...Arriba!

viajero wrote:

slainte39 wrote:
Oh yes, couldn't Bimbo be as guilty as Coca Cola, Maseca, or FUD.

FUD;acronym for "fino,unico y delicioso"...

So that's it...I always thought it was the Spanish spelling of the English word "food," a clever play on words...ha, ha, my error! It should be "fatty, unhealthy, and downright bad for you."

Hey Mike....What's your favorite corner?...other than...
the Libramiento and the Carretera?    

I think the main thing Fud is guilty of, is packaging poop in plastic paper.