Mexico Lambasts Junk Food Ads

Commercials urging people to consume expensive "junk food" are undermining the Mexican government's efforts to improve the nutrition of over 35 million severely undernourished Mexicans, concludes a study published this spring by the Mexican National Consumer Institute. The report, which notes that 12 of the 15 largest advertising companies in Mexico are multinational affiliates, marks the beginning of the institute's campaign to restrict junk food advertising.

"The main fight concerns the use of the TV," says Enrique Rubio, General Director of the Consumer Institute. Television advertising especially affects children of the lower socioeconomic strata, who watch an average of four hours of television daily, or about 80 commercials, the study notes.

The report found that 70 percent of Mexican children have diets consisting primarily ofjunk food. Mexican children annually consume more manufactured cupcakes and pastries such as Twinkies, than eggs. They drink 75 percent as much soda-Pepsi. Fanta and Coke are popular brands-as the national per capita consumption of milk. Of the two million children born annually, 1.5 million will not fully develop physically or mentally because of malnutrition, the study reports. One hundred thousand children die annually from diseases that would not be fatal given proper nourishment.

"This is a crime," says Rubio. "We cannot continue like this." The multinational "junk food" producers see things a different way. "What are we going to do?" asks Ileana Dunne, spokesperson for the Pepsi-Cola Company, which promotes both Pepsi and snack food such as Fritos and Doritos in Mexico. "We have to advertise our product and our product is soft drinks and snack food."