Obesity In Mexico Research Paper

911 Words4 Pages

Food has always been around as a source of energy for humans to survive. It revolves around us in our daily lives. There are many issues relating to food that is happening in the world, such as obesity. Obesity is a public health problem that exist in many countries and one of the countries with a high number of obesity is Mexico, ranked fourth for it prevalence of obesity. As a arising issue, obesity is caused by the abundance of eating unhealthy food, such as fast food, and drinking sugary beverages. Mexico is determining ways to reduce the amount of people from becoming obese or overweight by enforcing soda taxes and improving the environment so that their people can become healthier. Study has proved that obesity is a result of a variety …show more content…

It is important to realize the amount of unhealthy and sugary substances consumed for an individual so that their health isn’t destroyed or go overweight. According to a study by Salazar-Martines et al, “the growth of what some authors have called an obesogenic environment, which refers to processes such as the proliferation of fast food restaurants and candy and soft drink vending machines, increased acceptance and consumption of snacks and processed foods, larger portion sizes in restaurants, prevalence of television sets in the home and other elements that lead to less physical activity” (Martinez et al 536). This quotation emphasizes the factors that contributes to obesity and overweight in the population of Mexico. In other words, the environment is composed with a variation of fast food restaurants, high calorie drinks, candy, and junk foods demonstrates that Mexican people are constantly surrounded by such unhealthy factors that leads to the prevalence of obesity and overweight people. This implies that the environment should be improved and decrease the amount of unhealthy food products in the …show more content…

According to an article “Taxes on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages to Reduce Overweight and Obesity in Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review” by Sharon S. Nakhimovsky, the World Health Organization (WHO) takes in consideration of taxing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) due to the huge impact it has today (Nakhimovsky). Taxing high calorie beverages is a strategy to reduce the consumption of calories since people won’t reduce their consumption of calories after drinking sodas, which results in more calories being consumed. Mexico is one of the countries who have implemented the soda or sugar-sweetened beverage tax as a way to prevent obesity from impacting the country even more and improve public health outcomes. If the price for sodas or sugar beverages increase, then the demand for them will lower. This is a step in lowering the consumption of sugar in Mexico, even though it may not permanently reduce the population of obesity in the country, but action has been taken towards the goal of improving public health problems like obesity and overweight. In accordance to the soda tax, Mexico has also taken moves to “limiting junk-food advertisements aimed at children”, expressed by Amy Guthrie, since children is more vulnerable to succumb to eating unhealthy, junk, or fast food due to attraction of its tastiness,