The agreements established between the Secretary of Social Development
(Sedesol) and the beverage, food, & self-service store industry under the
auspices of the National Crusade against Hunger effort will ultimately
encourage the entrance of junk foods into a population that could spiral into
obesity problems with the worst metabolic consequences. We face a new kind of “hunger epidemic,”
suggested Julieta Ponce, director of the Center for Food Guidance.
Ponce advised that until now, initiatives that would either promote
breastfeeding or put corn, beans, amaranth, & garden vegetables on the
tables of the 7.4 million Mexicans included in the crusade have not been
seen. But instead, there are agreements
today that facilitate the entry of processed foods like PepsiCo’s Quaker-brand
cookies, or that curiously allow Nestlé, one of the major producers of baby
formula, to offer nutrition courses to the public.
The government does not have a holistic strategy for addressing the
public’s diet.
“A government-backed program should not just address the 6.5 percent of the population that go hungry. The government should also consider the eighty percent of the population suffering from obesity and its consequences for health,” added the nutrition specialist.
Hunger and obesity cannot be separated, Ponce also highlighted, because
an intrinsic relationship exists between them.
“People who suffer from malnutrition in the first stages of life risk
suffering from obesity” and its associated health consequences. The specialist further added that the
government program Opportunities has exacerbated this situation, given that the
money provided to welfare recipients is ultimately spent on junk food.
During the interview, Ponce mentioned that the government-sponsored
Disconsa stores chartered with the purpose of alleviating hunger in rural areas
have sold PepsiCo and Nestlé products for years, and she estimates that this
hunger crusade has actually opened up the channels of welfare assistance to
private industry participation.
“If we thought we knew these terrible consequences of facilitating junk food consumption before, these places are really driving up this consumption now. The Disconsa shops, the very ones that sell these products… they could become the cookie distributors of tomorrow. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Wherever healthy food options are lacking, there is a junk food industry ready to come to the rescue.”
Ponce recollected that the crusade-related decree signed on January 21
was centered around the nation’s fulfillment of obligations designed to
guarantee individual rights to a nutritious, adequate, & high-quality
diet. For this latter aspect, however,
one would presume that the foods which show up in our stores therefore do not
pose a risk to health.
“The agreements signed between the State and the industry are worrisome, because it is México that must guarantee these nutrition rights, not the industry. We know that the ultimate aims of companies like PepsiCo are all about the bottom line.”Ponce adds that this company in particular is going to produce biscuits & cookies from processed oats rather than from basic grains, and that with such an approach, “hunger cannot be beaten.”
Ultimately, says Ponce, this is about a new kind of “hunger epidemic”,
and ever since the crusade was announced,
“we hoped things wouldn’t come to this, but we’ve seen (how the State took) the easy way out in bringing Mexican society into this strategy.”
She points out that one related area in which we have yet to see
concrete answers is in local food production, reduced waste in the supply chain, and
community participation, all of which are mandates of the crusade. The Secretary of Agriculture has not issued
one solitary pronouncement in this respect, while Sedesol published these
commitments when
“they haven’t even been able to secure a strategy for local food production.”
Ponce concluded that it is not sufficient to merely align
programs that combat hunger:
“There is not a proposal for transformation and restructuring, and even that isn’t enough. What we see behind all of this is an administrative breakdown.”