Childhood Obesity: Mexico Becomes Fatter After Adopting 'American-Sized' Portions Nicole Akoukou Thompson - Latin Post
go to original December 16, 2013

“American-sized” portions and junk food have helped to make Latin America sluggish, and encouraged them away from traditional fresh foods. (Flickr)

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a study that reveals that Argentina has eradicated national hunger, but it also ranks as the third highest Latin American country in obesity. The report highlights the lower rates of hunger across Latin American and the dramatic rise of obesity in South America. In Argentina, the obesity rate is 29.4 percent, lagging behind the slightly more obese nations Venezuela (30.8 percent obesity rate) and, the heaviest, Mexico (32.8 percent obesity rate). This development comes as a shock because the rapid rise of obesity in the United States (31.8 percent obesity rate) over the last 25 years would have presumably kept it in crowning position as the most obese high-populous nation, but the U.S. has still been defeated by Mexico, which is now the "fattest" of the more populous nations.

Nauru, a tiny island in the South Pacific still maintains top-rank as the world's heaviest nation with an adult obesity rate of an outstanding 71.1 percent. But, of nations with more residents, Latin American countries have raced up the list, standing shapely hip-to-hip with America, a nation of excess -always thought to be painfully gluttonous.

"Obesity affects 23 percent of adults and 7 percent of children in Argentina. Infant obesity has grown by 9.9 percent in the country in the last 20 years. In Latin America as a whole, a total of 3.8m children under five years of age are obese," the FAO report indicated.

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