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New Campaign Calls for Junk Food and Sugary Drinks to be Removed From Children’s Lives in Mexico

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 (WLF) today congratulated the Mexican civil society network, the Alliance for Healthy Food, on the launch of the second phase of its childhood obesity prevention mass media campaign. This new, provocative campaign, called What did your children eat today?, has been designed to raise awareness that one-third of Mexican children will develop diabetes during their lifetime, largely because of their consumption of junk food and sugary drinks, and to call for the removal of all junk food and related marketing from children’s lives. WLF provided technical assistance on the design and development of the campaign, which will run on radio, out of home media, and the subway in Mexico City, as well as social and digital media.

The Alliance for Healthy Food (http://alianzasalud.org.mx

The campaign’s print ad shows a young girl surrounded by junk food and sugary drinks, alluding to the fact that Mexican children are constantly exposed to these products and the marketing of these products, increasing the likelihood of children consuming unhealthy foods. A red banner at the top of the ad highlights the shocking fact that one in three Mexican children will suffer from diabetes during their lives and the campaign slogan, Let’s remove all junk food from their world, is a call to act in children’s best interests. The campaign is targeted at parents and guardians, to persuade them to make better dietary choices for their children and to be active participants in calling for healthy environments for children. It is also targeted at policymakers who can fully implement and enforce existing school food legislation as well as frame new legislation to stop the pervasive junk food and sugary drink advertising that targets Mexican children and to introduce effective, comprehensive food labels for Mexican consumers. Mexico’s recently-introduced “Soda Tax” is showing that health taxes encourage consumers to change their behaviour, but food and beverage companies have been using commercial strategies and legal complaints to try to block and circumvent full national implementation of the “Soda Tax” and “Snack Tax”, as well as other health policies aimed at curbing overweight and obesity.

Sandra Mullin, Senior Vice President, Policy and Communications, World Lung Foundation, commented: “No-one would wish to place a child at risk of a lifetime of illness, economic harm and premature death. This campaign makes it clear that by facilitating consumption of junk food and sugary drinks, parents, guardians and policymakers are doing exactly that. It will take a concerted effort by all these stakeholders to reverse a situation where poor dietary habits are leaving one in three Mexican children with a lifetime risk of developing diabetes. Alarmingly, the incidence of children developing type 2 diabetes – normally found in adults – is also increasing in many countries around the world, including Mexico.

“While parents can make a difference by being good role models and by providing healthy food and drink choices inside the home, we also encourage the Mexican government to strengthen its efforts to combat this public health crisis. This includes standing firm against the lobbying tactics and threatening words of Big Food and Big Soda, aimed at preventing the passage, implementation and enforcement of rigorous laws, regulations and policies to help curb overweight, obesity and diabetes. We would also encourage comprehensive restrictions on the marketing of junk food and sugary drinks – particularly when it’s targeted at children. Government could enforce school lunch policies and restrict the sale of junk food and sugary drinks near schools and other child-centric environments to improve the diets of school-age children. Government could also improve food labelling so that it is informative and understandable, to further demonstrate its determination to tackle obesity at a national level.

“Urgent and aggressive action is the only way to prevent Mexico’s children from having a shorter life expectancy than their parents. We applaud the Alliance for Healthy Food for raising Mexico’s awareness of this health crisis and for trying to create an environment in which Mexican children are free of the junk food and sugary drinks that are detrimental to their present and future well-being.”

On behalf of the Alliance for Healthy Food, Alejandro Calvillo of the consumer rights organization El Poder del Consumidorcommented, “Government officials and legislators have a decisive role to play everywhere in safeguarding the future of children. When children see junk food and its pervasive marketing in every corner of their environment, and when the government and educators fail to inform consumers and children of the health risks of certain foods, we are failing our children.”

The concept of What did your children eat today? was pre-tested with audiences to determine the effectiveness of the campaign’s ability to grab the viewer’s attention, its personal relevance, the strength of the take-away message and its 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 national tax on sugary drinks in Mexico.

The Bloomberg Philanthropies Obesity Prevention Program provided funding and support for the launch of the campaign, and supported World Lung Foundation’s technical support. 

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), which experts believe will result in the current generation of Mexican children being the first to enjoy a shorter life expectancy than their parents. 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 Mexican President, the National Academy of Medicine and the Secretary of Health all recognize that such a high incidence of overweight and obesity is one of Mexico’s greatest public health problems. Obesity and diabetes cost the public health sector more than 40 billion pesos a year. The total costs of obesity in Mexico were estimated at US$5.5bn in 2008 and are estimated to reach US$12.5bn per year by 2017 (USD conversions from pesos are variable according to the exchange rate). 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. These issues motivated the government to announce its National Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Overweight, Obesity and Diabetes in 2013. Public health advocates in Mexico welcomed the Strategy as an important first step in addressing this public health crisis, but believe that much more needs to be done to stop the rising trends of obesity and diabetes among the Mexican population.

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, access to affordable, fresh food and promotion of breastfeeding. The What did your children eat today? 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