The law against childhood obesity is approved

• May 3, 2024

The Senate of the Republic approved, on November 3, 2010, a reform package for combat overweight and obesity in schools of basic education, as well as to prohibit the sale and marketing of food and beverages low nutritional content , In general.

However, two articles, 301 and 307 of the General law of health , they delayed the approval of the opinion in the particular, reason why it was returned to commissions, where it runs the risk that they are frozen.
In these articles the sale and advertising of "junk" products was prohibited not only in public schools , but in sports centers across the country.

According to official figures from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), based on the National Health and Nutrition Survey, Mexico occupies the first place in childhood obesity : one in four children between five and 11 years old, that is, four and a half million children, suffer from overweight or obesity .

The parliamentary fraction of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), through the senator from Guanajuato, Francisco Arroyo Vieyra , proposed to harden the terms of the opinion, since the original wording established that the Ministries of Health and Education, could only "limit "the marketing of products with a low nutritional content and a high caloric content." The PRI members proposed replacing said word with "ban ”.

The opinion, approved with 89 votes, prohibits the sale of laxatives to minors, to avoid eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.

The approved reform authorizes the creation of the National Food and Nutrition Observatory, a body dependent on the Ministry of Health, which will be empowered to evaluate and monitor the population's diet and nutrition.

The Ministries of Health, Public Education (SEP) and state governments will formulate and develop programs to limit the consumption of foods and beverages with high caloric content and low nutrimental content that promote physical activity, said the opinion.

The SS, in coordination with the SEP, will monitor the size, weight and body mass of the school population in basic education, for prevention, detection Y treatment of the obesity and related illnesses, such as diabetes.

Source: Process

Video Medicine: Study: Junk food laws could cut childhood obesity (May 2024).