Several Latin American countries are dealing with increasing obesity rates by passing junk food laws, including putting taxes on junk food. Countries with junk food laws include Peru, Chile, and Mexico, the journal the Lancet reports. One way that Chile and Peru are combating obesity is by restricting or banning junk food at schools. Chile passed a law that banned junk food sales within a certain distance from schools. A Peruvian law, signed by the president last spring, includes removing junk food from school vending machines and cafeterias. It also bans advertising of food with trans fats or excessive amounts of sugar, salt and saturated fat. The law won’t take effect until implementing regulations, currently being drafted by a multi-agency commission, are approved.
Peru has the greatest concentration of places to eat, and fast foods are growing. Peruvians only have to travel 0.66 miles to find a U.S. fast food restaurant, according to a report by Bloomberg. The first U.S. fast food chain opened in 1981 in Peru. Bloomberg attributes the rise in fast foods in Peru to increased wages and urbanization. The average wages have increased in Lima, the capital, by 56 percent since 2006 and unemployment has decreased. Three quarters of the Peruvian population live in cities.
Mexico passed a five percent excise tax on junk food last fall, and it went into effect on January 1. The country is the world’s ninth largest market for processed foods, according to InvestorPlace, and is Coca-Cola’s second most profitable market and PepsiCo’s third largest market by revenue. Mexico obesity rate surpassed the U.S. last year at 32.8 versus 31.8, a UN report revealed. That makes Mexico the fattest country in the Americas and one of the fattest in the world.
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A report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Mexico found that Mexico has the lowest life expectancy of all OECD countries. Life expectancy increased by three years on average across OECD countries from 2000 to 2011 (77.1 years to 80.1 years) and only increased in Mexico by less than one year during the same time period (73.3 to 74.2 years). The report attributes the slow progress in life expectancy to “harmful health-related behaviors including poor nutrition habits and very high obesity rates.”
Global obesity has increased from 23 percent in 1980 to 34 percent in 2008, and most of that increase occurred in the developing world, a report by Overseas Development Institute titled “Future Diets” found. A total of 904 million people in developing countries are categorized as being overweight or obese with a BMI of over 25. There were only 250 million in 1980 categorized as obese in developing countries. Part of that increase is caused by a change in diets, including eating more fats, sugar, oils and animal products.
Restricting salt intake can save lives. In 2011, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Deputy Director Dr. Jon Andrus spoke at a forum in Italy and said that an estimated 3.2 million lives could be saved over the next decade in Latin America and the Caribbean by reducing salt intake by 15 percent. Junk food taxes just might reduce consumption of unhealthy foods loaded with salt and sugar. A 2012 New Zealand study on junk food taxes found that there would be a decrease of 0.02 in junk food consumption for every one percent price increase. Sugary drinks consumption could decrease up to 24 percent with a 10 percent price increase.
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