Mexican schools have 6 months to ban junk food sales or face heavy fines
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[October 22, 2024]
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Schools in Mexico have six months to implement
a government-sponsored ban on junk food or face heavy fines, officials
said Monday, as authorities confront what they call the worst childhood
obesity problem in the world.
The rules, published on Sept. 30, target products that have become
staples for two or three generations of Mexican school kids: sugary
fruit drinks, chips, artificial pork rinds and soy-encased, salty
peanuts with chili.
School administrators who violate the order will face fines equivalent
to between $545 and $5,450, which could double for a second offense.
That could amount to nearly a year’s wages for some.
Mexico's children have the highest consumption of junk food in Latin
America and many get 40% of their total caloric intake from it,
according to the U.N. children’s agency, which has called child obesity
there an emergency.
Authorities say about one-third of Mexico's children are overweight or
obese.
Previous attempts to implement laws against junk food have met with
little success.
A survey of over 10,000 schools carried out between 2023 and 2024 found
that junk food was available in 98% of them, with sugary drinks in 95%
and soft drinks in 79%. Ads for junk food were found in 25% of schools.
New President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that schools will have to
offer water fountains and alternative snacks, like bean tacos.
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A street vendor sells sweet snacks in Mexico City, July 5, 2016. (AP
Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
“It is much better to eat a bean
taco than a bag of potato chips,” Sheinbaum said. “It is much better
to drink hibiscus flower water than soda.”
However, the vast majority of Mexico's 255,000 schools do not have
free drinking water available to students. According to a report in
2020, the effort to install drinking fountains succeeded in about
10,900 of the country’s schools, or about 4%. Many schools are in
areas so poor or remote that they struggle to maintain acceptable
bathrooms, internet connection or electricity.
Mexico instituted front-of-package warning labels for foods between
2010 and 2020 to advise consumers about high levels of salt, added
sugar, excess calories and saturated fats. Some snack foods carry
all four warning labels.
But under the new rules, schools will have to phase out any product
containing even a single warning label from their snack stands.
It wasn't immediately clear how the government would enforce the ban
on the sidewalks outside schools, where vendors usually set up
tables of goods to sell to kids at recess; 77% of schools in the
recent survey had such stands outside.
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