Mexico obesity rate knocks America out of number one spot
Officials at the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization say Mexico with a 32.8 percent adult obesity rate is the most overweight of the industrialized nations.
Americans aren’t the fattest people in the world.
photo Parenting Patch via wikimedia commons
Previously, the United States with an adult obesity rate of 31.8 percent was the world’s fattest nation. Last year, the percentage of U.S. adults overweight went down slightly.
A report by the FAO said Mexico’s widely available inexpensive junk food and penetration of U.S. fast-food chains combined with a more sedentary lifestyle all contributed to Mexico’s bulging waistline.
About 70 percent of Mexican adults are overweight, while childhood obesity tripled in a decade and about a third of teenagers are overweight as well, the Global Post said.
Weight-related diabetes claims 1-of-6 one of Mexican adults — or 70,000 people a year — suffering from the disease each year, the report said.
“The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese,” said physician Abelardo Avila with Mexico’s National Nutrition Institute. “In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. It’s a very serious epidemic.”
Diabetes alone kills as many as 70,000 people a year in Mexico — roughly equal to the deaths authorities say are caused by more than six years of the country’s gangland wars.
More than 400,000 new cases are being diagnosed every year.
