{"id":44512,"date":"2011-04-07T09:01:06","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=44512"},"modified":"2011-04-07T08:59:04","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T13:59:04","slug":"mexico-schools-offer-healthier-snack-options-to-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/04\/mexico-schools-offer-healthier-snack-options-to-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico Schools Offer Healthier Snack Options to Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Mexico Schools Offer Healthier Snack Options to Children\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/04\/mexico-schools-offer-healthier-snack-options-to-children\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-46202\" title=\"mexican children eating chips\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/mexican-children-eating-chips.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"295\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>The beginning of the year marked a turning point for schools in Mexico. In order to fight <strong><a title=\"childhood obesity\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/04\/children-are-growing-fatter-as-they-go-hungry\/\">childhood obesity<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0a soda ban and new food guidelines were put into place. Unfortunately, the new food rules are proving to be too relaxed for the taste of some officials.<\/p>\n<p>Mexico\u00a0is among the most obese countries in the world\u00a0and children are far from exempt in these statistics. To put it into numbers, one\u00a0out\u00a0of every three\u00a0children in Mexico\u00a0is overweight.<\/p>\n<p>Schools in Mexico do not provide <strong><a title=\"school lunches\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/01\/healthier-school-lunch-guidelines-on-the-way\/\">school lunches<\/a><\/strong>, but\u00a0food and snacks are sold at recess.\u00a0After long and painful negotiations with junk food moguls, officials stepped in to mandate what type of foods are allowed to be sold. Although\u00a0considerable improvements were made, there is still a\u00a0great need\u00a0for change. Chips, candy and cookies continue to be readily available for children to purchase\u00a0during school hours. After school, the situation worsens beyond the\u00a0reach of the newly-set standards.\u00a0Vendors eagerly wait outside for the\u00a0throng of students to come pouring out. <strong><a title=\"Biggest Loser Nachos Recipe\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/recipes\/chorizo-nachos\/\">Nachos<\/a><\/strong>, ice cream and various confections tempt the children after a long day in class.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Besides the fact that junk food is still available on school grounds, portion sizes are limited, as well as sugar content. The chips (at the school, not necessarily at the vendors outside) are baked instead of fried and the soft drink ban is holding strong. It&#8217;s easy to judge and say that too many special interests played a role in these regulations and that they need to be more strict but Dr. Jos\u00e9 Angel C\u00f3rdova, Mexico\u2019s health minister said, &#8220;We managed to do the most important things, which was to pull out the soft drinks and to get the composition of foods changed.&#8221; Nearly 90 percent of the fried food options were removed and as Education Minister Alonso Lujambio said, &#8220;That is a very aggressive change.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All of these new rules are on the right track but\u00a0a large number\u00a0of health and education officials want to see more progress.<\/p>\n<p>Via <a title=\"Mexico Schools Fight Obesity\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/14\/world\/americas\/14mexico.html?_r=2&amp;ref=education\">The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The beginning of the year marked a turning point for schools in Mexico. In order to fight childhood obesity,\u00a0a soda ban and new food guidelines were put into place. Unfortunately, the new food rules are proving to be too relaxed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/04\/mexico-schools-offer-healthier-snack-options-to-children\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1367],"tags":[314,84,1503,1445,3838],"class_list":["post-44512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-health","tag-childhood-obesity","tag-healthy-snacks","tag-mexico","tag-school-food","tag-school-lunch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44512"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46166,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512\/revisions\/46166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}