¡Viva México!
By MARK BITTMAN
Thanksgiving once marked the beginning of a season of belt-tightening,
as fresh food became scarce. Now it launches a fury of gluttony — and
it’s not as if we’re restrained at other times. Yet with
obesity-associated Type 2 diabetes at record levels, it’s widely agreed
that we have to moderate this diet. Which means that, despite corporate
intransigence, we have to slow the marketing of profitable, toxic and
addictive products masquerading as food.
It’s logical to start with soda and other beverages sweetened with sugar
or high-fructose corn syrup, which account for 7 percent of calories in
the American diet, and many public health specialists have recommended a
steep tax to reduce consumption. Ironically, France, which has a
relatively low obesity rate, was the first to initiate a significant
soda tax, and it seems to be reducing consumption — but its soda
drinking was relatively low to begin with. Now, however, it appears
we’re going to be able to judge such a tax, as well as the impact of a
tax on junk foods, in a country known for obesity. This new tax is
scheduled to be imposed in the new year, not in the supposedly
progressive public health bastions of New York or San Francisco (though
that city looks set to vote again on a soda tax in 2014), but in a
country many Americans view as backward: Mexico.
Barring an unlikely court upset, the new year in Mexico will bring a
national tax of one peso per liter — roughly 10 percent — on
sugar-sweetened beverages and 8 percent on junk food. The legislation
came about through a strong push by the Nutritional Health Alliance of
22 NGOs and networks representing some 650 nonprofits and grass-roots
organizations, and an alignment of interests among President Enrique
Peña Nieto, advisers in the Hacienda y Crédito Público (the rough
equivalent of the I.R.S.), and members of the opposition parties.
Industry will disagree, but sweetened beverages are generally
acknowledged to be a direct cause of the obesity epidemic. The question,
both in Mexico and in its immediate neighbor to the north (annual
consumption in both countries is around 40 gallons per capita), has been
how to curb it. Although President Obama murmured about a national soda
tax in 2009, it never went beyond that, and attempts to establish taxes
in various localities from New York to El Monte, Calif., have been
defeated at the polls or otherwise blocked, always after huge industry
campaigns.
The powerful Mexican soda and junk food industries were hardly asleep at
the wheel this fall, and fear of losing their advertisers appears to
have led major TV stations to refuse to run commercials advocating the
tax. But several factors motivated Mexico’s president and legislature,
including the fact that among populous nations, Mexico recently passed
the United States to become the world’s most obese. Beyond that, there’s
an increasing awareness that Mexico’s accelerating public health crisis
could hurt its economy, and that only prevention would make practical
the universal, single-payer health care system instituted last year.
In addition, agreed-upon financial reform meant that all unconventional
funding sources had to be considered seriously; the tax is expected to
bring in around $1 billion a year, and proponents of the tax had
successfully linked its passage to a campaign assuring that purified
drinking water would be made available in every school in the country.
(Many believe that if there had been universal clean drinking water, the
country would not have become so reliant on soda.) It may also be that
the Peña Nieto government wanted to distinguish itself from its
predecessors by claiming a new, highly visible place on the world stage.
Also critical to the new law was an agreement reached by the three major
political parties, called “Pact for Mexico,” which essentially
committed them all to not blocking anything that a majority wanted;
specifically, if the party in office and one of the other two major
parties wanted to pass one of 95 reforms necessary for the country to
progress the third party would not resist. In other words, the nation’s
future trumped partisan interests. (Americans may find this
embarrassing, for obvious reasons.)
This has meant not only fiscal reform but more vigorous attempts to rein
in corruption, break up monopolies in energy and communication, and
aggressive public health moves, like the constitutional addendum of 2011
that guarantees all citizens “the right to nutritious, sufficient and
quality food.” In fact the biggest takeaway may be that the government
of the country with the world’s 14th-largest gross domestic product has
placed public health above the profits of an important industry.
Yes, this may have been a politically expedient calculation (and no,
Mexico is hardly Nirvana), but the reality is that the regulation of an
industry that needs regulation is happening. And there could hardly be a
more important and legitimate role for government than attending to the
health and well-being of its populace; we need not reflect too long on
the inability or unwillingness of the government of the country with the
world’s largest economy to recognize this. (Equally embarrassing.)
Although the soda tax got most of the attention, other moves are also
important. The junk food tax, first proposed at 5 percent but boosted to
8 when one senator argued that 5 percent didn’t even cover the public
expenditure on health problems caused by junk food, will use caloric
density to define processed foods that are detrimental to health. The
formula, which will exclude meat, dairy and other “real” foods, would
tax those foods that contain more than 275 calories per 100 grams, or
just over three ounces. (For perspective: 100 grams of Snickers is about
500 calories; 100 grams of apple is approximately 50 calories.)
And although Mexico’s Constitution forbids “earmarks” — tax revenues for
specific purposes — there’s at least preliminary agreement that much of
the money from the new taxes be used for public health, including
giving all schools drinking fountains that dispense purified water.
(When asked if they were in favor of a soda tax, most Mexicans polled
said no. When advocates linked the tax to obesity prevention, including
clean water in schools, 70 percent were in favor. Soda tax campaigners,
please note.) Especially in rural areas, people might end up using
schools to get water for their homes, which would make it more likely
that schools would be used to distribute subsidized fruits and
vegetables, another goal of public health advocates.
Sugar (and by extension sugary beverages) is one of the three luxuries —
along with tobacco and rum— described by Adam Smith as “extremely
proper subjects of taxation”; it has proved to be the toughest to tax of
the three. And although the soda tax is being hailed by supporters on
both sides of the border (the American Heart Association said in a
statement, “Mexico’s effort provides an excellent starting point, but we
need U.S. states and communities to enact the tax as well”), there is
also wariness, because the tax is roughly half what research indicates
to be the super-effectiveness threshold of about 20 percent. The
peso-per-liter level is still meaningful, however; in fact, Femsa,
Mexico’s Coke bottler, has said it would pass on the tax by raising
prices between 12 and 15 percent.
Still, it’s difficult to be confident, especially since these taxes seem
small against the overall challenge: significantly reducing consumption
of sugar and controlling the marketing of junk food to kids.
Furthermore, public health education is needed to turn around the
culture of sugar, in which people may buy and drink sweet beverages
despite higher costs and the presence of alternatives. When I visited
Mexico City recently, tax advocates told me that the new moves made it
clear that the previous administrations did nothing to prevent the
obesity crisis (indeed, the next-to-last president was a former
president of Coca-Cola Mexico). The new government has raised the stakes
in defining a quality diet, recognizing that cheap calories are not
sufficient and that real food is preferable to processed products.
Unlike the meaningless chant of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” (or the ridiculously
chauvinistic “We’re No.1!”), ¡Viva México! actually means something:
“Let Mexico Live!” (Or, more popularly, Long Live Mexico!)
But thanks largely to proximity (and Nafta) Mexico has suffered more
from adapting the standard American diet than any other country.
Everyone, it seems, is surprised that these taxes are going forward. It
would be fitting if they paved the way toward a saner diet, just as it
would be both paradoxical and wonderful if the United States could
follow its lead.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/opinion/sunday/bittman-viva-mexico.html?pagewanted=all
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