Note: World Lung Foundation united with The Union North America. From January 2016, the combined organization is known as “Vital Strategies.”
(Mexico City, Mexico and New York, United States) – World Lung Foundation today congratulated the Mexican civil society network the Alliance for Healthy Food on the second phase launch of an obesity prevention mass media campaign in Mexico called Our Kids Come First. This hard-hitting campaign, for which WLF was very pleased to provide technical assistance, has been designed to inform people about the link between children’s exposure to marketing for junk food and sugary drinks and poor dietary choices, obesity, illness and death. The campaign aims to build support for a comprehensive ban on adverts for junk food and sugary drinks and marketing tools that target children. It is targeted both at parents and guardians who care for children and influencers and policymakers who can frame new legislation.
The Public Service Announcement (PSA) graphically shows how children are constantly exposed to junk food and sugary drink marketing throughout a normal day. It depicts how these adverts are specifically designed to catch a child’s attention, inside and outside of the home, across a variety of media, with the use of appealing characters, toys, videogames and other promotions. The PSA asserts that exposure to junk food marketing influences eating patterns and preferences – contributing to a situation where a third of Mexican children are obese. The ad also shows the outcomes of obesity, including diabetes-related disability, heart disease and cancer. It ends by asserting that Our Kids Come First and calls for a complete ban on junk food marketing targeting children. The campaign is running on paid TV, radio, out of home media, LED screens at Mexico City International Airport, and digital media, through November.
The TV concept was audience-tested to determine the PSA’s effectiveness in terms of its ability to grab the viewer’s attention, personal relevance, the strength of the take-away message and the likely impact. An evaluation of a previous campaign, Don’t harm yourself drinking sugary drinks (Sugary Drinks), found that three-quarters of respondents said they intended to reduce their children’s consumption of sugary drinks after seeing the ad. Two-thirds of respondents agreed that sugary drinks are bad for health. The Sugary Drinks campaign informed the public of the health risks associated with their consumption and built support for legislation to introduce a tax on sugary drinks.
The Mexican government has recognized the harms of child-targeted marketing but there is only a partial ban on this practice on some timeslots of children’s TV programming and in cinemas, using weak nutritional standards based on industry self-regulation practices and leaving all other media open to continue this practice. Our Kids Come First aims to encourage the introduction of a comprehensive ban on child-targeted marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages.
“The health and economic burden of obesity is increasing in Mexico and without urgent and aggressive action, even more people will be condemned to a life of obesity and ill health. Policymakers and civil society organizations should be applauded for trying to create an environment where junk food and sugary drinks adverts have no place,” said Sandra Mullin, Senior Vice President, Policy and Communications, World Lung Foundation. “Reports suggest that Mexico’s soda tax already has had a positive impact on reducing soda sales. We are confident that Our Kids Come First will influence attitudes and change parents’ behavior, prompting them to make healthier choices for their children and encouraging them to support more comprehensive bans on junk food marketing. ”
The toll of obesity on health and the economy
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Mexico has the world’s highest rate of adult obesity, with one third of all adults obese. One-third of children and seventy percent of adults are overweight or obese. This has resulted in an alarming increase in the incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It is estimated that 14 percent of Mexican adults have diabetes; Mexico has the sixth-highest incidence of diabetes-related mortality in the world, claiming half a million lives during the last six years. The costs of obesity currently stand at 80 billion pesos (US$ 6.15bn) per year and are estimated to reach 150 billion pesos (US$11.5bn) per year by 2017. As diabetes takes its toll on the country’s poorest families, who make up the majority of the population, the sustainability of the nation’s public health system and the nation’s economy both are jeopardized. The President, the National Academy of Medicine and the Secretary of Health all recognize that such a high incidence of overweight/obesity is one of Mexico’s greatest public health problems.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies Obesity Prevention Program provided funding and support for the launch of the campaign, and supported World Lung Foundation’s technical support.
About the Alliance for Healthy Food in Mexico
In August 2012, concerned about staggering rates of malnutrition and obesity in Mexico and serious deterioration of healthy eating habits, more than 20 public interest organizations and social movements, together with academics, created a national coalition called the Alianza por la Salud Alimentaria (the Alliance for Healthy Food). This alliance of producers, consumers, nutrition, development and environmental experts advocates for comprehensive policies to restore healthy eating habits and environments, and to combat all forms of malnutrition including obesity. The Alliance’s manifesto explains the need for action in defense of public interest on eight priority policy issues including compulsory access to purified free drinking water, healthy food and drinks in schools, clear food labeling, protection of children from targeted marketing, fiscal measures on junk foods, and promotion of breastfeeding. The Our Kids Come First campaign is one of several social marketing campaigns that the Alliance has sponsored to date. For more information, please visit http://alianzasalud.org.mx or @actuaporlasalud on Twitter