AuH20
11-01-2013, 08:28 AM
Hey Boobus, move over.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/04/diabetes-mexico
Time was, a prominent girth may have been enviable proof of relative prosperity. Now, it is a serious health risk. At a conference here on April 9th it was estimated that more than 10m Mexicans, or almost a sixth of the adult population, suffer from diabetes, largely because of over-eating and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Mexico has the sixth most cases of diabetes in the world.
Diabetes is one of the top two causes of death in the country, alongside (and occasionally overlapping with) heart disease. The diabetes federation says that the illness kills 70,000 people a year. However, it gets far less attention than much less deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, not to mention organised crime (which is responsible for roughly 60,000 deaths in the past six years). “It could get to the point where we are literally eating ourselves to death,” says Jesper Holland of Novo Nordisk, a Danish health-care company that is a big supplier of insulin to Mexico.
In a country like Mexico where there is not much stigma attached to being overweight, there would probably be stiff opposition to regulating consumers’ behaviour, especially as measures such as higher taxes on soft drinks would fall disproportionately on the poor. Instead, the government should play up gluttony as a killer, as it does with cigarettes—especially in school, where a third of children are said to be obese—and literally scare people off their junk food. Diabetes provides that opportunity. Given Mexico’s extensive public health-care system, the state foots the bill for the sharply rising cost of diabetes treatment. There is huge public interest in giving it more prominence.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/04/diabetes-mexico
Time was, a prominent girth may have been enviable proof of relative prosperity. Now, it is a serious health risk. At a conference here on April 9th it was estimated that more than 10m Mexicans, or almost a sixth of the adult population, suffer from diabetes, largely because of over-eating and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Mexico has the sixth most cases of diabetes in the world.
Diabetes is one of the top two causes of death in the country, alongside (and occasionally overlapping with) heart disease. The diabetes federation says that the illness kills 70,000 people a year. However, it gets far less attention than much less deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, not to mention organised crime (which is responsible for roughly 60,000 deaths in the past six years). “It could get to the point where we are literally eating ourselves to death,” says Jesper Holland of Novo Nordisk, a Danish health-care company that is a big supplier of insulin to Mexico.
In a country like Mexico where there is not much stigma attached to being overweight, there would probably be stiff opposition to regulating consumers’ behaviour, especially as measures such as higher taxes on soft drinks would fall disproportionately on the poor. Instead, the government should play up gluttony as a killer, as it does with cigarettes—especially in school, where a third of children are said to be obese—and literally scare people off their junk food. Diabetes provides that opportunity. Given Mexico’s extensive public health-care system, the state foots the bill for the sharply rising cost of diabetes treatment. There is huge public interest in giving it more prominence.