The health survey showed that soda intake had more than doubled among adolescents between 19, and nearly tripled among women. Choose one thing.” Sign up to the long read email Rivera laid out a programme, involving various parts of the government, to educate the public, encourage behaviour change, and regulate advertising, among other things. Mexican soda tax cuts sales of sugary soft drinks by 6% in first year
The country’s then health secretary, José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, approached Juan Rivera, the founding director of the Centre for Research in Nutrition and Health at Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health – perhaps the country’s most prominent nutrition scientist – and asked him for recommendations to combat the obesity epidemic. The 2006 obesity statistics sounded an alarm in Mexico. No other country in the world had experienced a rise in obesity of that magnitude – Mexico was on its way to becoming the fattest major country. And during the same period, obesity among children aged five to 11 rose by 40%. Between 19, the average waist size among women of childbearing age increased by nearly 11cm. The consequences of this became apparent in 2006, when the release of Mexico’s National Survey of Health and Nutrition revealed that diabetes – the country’s leading cause of death – had doubled since 2000. The symbolism was noteworthy: soda companies – particularly Coke, which controls 73% of the Mexican market (compared with only 42% in the US) – have amassed extraordinary influence over health policy in Mexico. Vicente Fox, who in 2000 became the country’s first democratically elected president, had earlier been president of Coca-Cola Mexico and then head of the company’s Latin American operations. How one of the most obese countries on earth took on the soda giants - Podcastīut Mexico also loves the soda industry. In other words, excessive consumption of soda kills twice as many Mexicans as trade in the other kind of coke that Mexico is famous for. Mexico also has by far the world’s highest death rate from chronic diseases caused by consumption of sugary drinks – nearly triple that of the runner-up, South Africa. In fact, Mexicans drink more soda than nearly anyone else in the world their top three daily sources of calories in 2012 were all high-calorie drinks. In the highlands of Chiapas, Coca-Cola is considered to have magical powers and is used in religious rites. Babies in strollers suck on bottles filled with orange soda. Construction workers go to their jobs in the early morning clutching giant two-litre or even three-litre bottles.