Mexico has decided to restrict TV commercials for high-calorie food and soft drinks, as part of its campaign against obesity, the government says.
Such ads will be banned with immediate effect on terrestrial and cable TV between 14:30 and 19:30 on weekdays and between 07:30 and 19:30 at weekends.
Restrictions will also be imposed on similar ads shown at the cinema.
Mexico is restricting television advertising for high-calorie food and soft drinks, as part of its campaign against obesity
According to official figures, 70% of adults and 30% of children in Mexico are obese or overweight.
Overall, 40% of commercials for soft drinks, confectionery and chocolates will disappear from TV, in favor of products which “meet nutritional standards”, the health ministry is quoted as saying.
As an additional measure, from 2015, manufacturers will be made to label the sugar, fat and saturated fat content on their food and drink products.
Mexicans have the highest incidence of diabetes among the 34 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
They are also the world’s heaviest consumers of sugary drinks, at 163 liters per year, and their diet is rich in fried food.
Health experts estimate Mexico’s weight problems will cost the public health care system $11.7 billion by 2017.
Last year, the Mexican government introduced taxes on high-calorie foods and drinks, as part of its obesity prevention strategy.
California Senator William Monning wants to make his state the first in the nation to require warning labels on soda and other sugary drinks.
Democratic Sen. William Monning’s bill proposed Thursday would require the warning on the front of all beverage containers with added sweeteners that have 75 or more calories in every 12 ounces.
The label would read: “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAFETY WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay.”
California new bill would require the warning on the front of all beverage containers with added sweeteners that have 75 or more calories in every 12 ounces
The new bill is backed by several public health advocacy groups.
The first proposal of its kind would put California, which banned sodas and junk food from public schools in 2005, back in the vanguard of a growing national movement to curb the consumption of high-caloric beverages that medical experts say are largely to blame for an epidemic of childhood obesity.
A growing body of research has identified sugary drinks as the biggest contributors to added, empty calories in the American diet, and as a major culprit in a range of costly health problems associated with being overweight.
More than a third of all US adults and nearly 17% of children between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
State Senator Bill Monning, who sponsored the warning label bill and whose effort to push a state tax on sugary drinks died last year, said the new measure was crafted in such a way as to address criticism leveled at other measures.
CalBev, the California arm of the American Beverage Association said in a statement that it is misleading to suggest that soft drink consumption is uniquely responsible for weight gain.
“Only 4.0 percent of calories in the average American diet are derived directly from soda,” they said.
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According to a new study, women who drank the most sweet soft drinks had a 78% increased risk of endometrial cancer.
Researchers have found that other sweet treats, such as baked goods, didn’t have an effect. Nor did natural fruit juice, even though it’s full of naturally occurring sugars.
The findings fit in with other research linking sugar intake, obesity and a lack of exercise with the cancer, which kills more than 8,000 US women a year.
“Other studies have shown increasing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages has paralleled the increase in obesity. Obese women tend to have higher levels of estrogens and insulin than women of normal weight,” said Maki Inoue-Choi, who did the study while at the University of Minnesota and now is at the National Cancer Institute.
It has to do with how insulin, which controls how the body uses sugar, affects other hormones such as estrogen.
“Increased levels of estrogens and insulin are established risk factors for endometrial cancer,” Dr. Maki Inoue-Choi said.
Dr. Maki Inoue-Choi and colleagues studied the records of 23,000 middle-aged women who had gone through menopause. Endometrial cancer is more common in women past menopause.
The women had been taking part in a bigger study of diet, and regularly filled out questionnaires on what they ate and drank every day. They were specifically asked about Coke, Pepsi and other cola drinks; caffeine-free versions of these drinks; 7-Up and similar sugar-sweetened sodas, and other sugary drinks such as lemonade or Hawaiian Punch.
They were also asked about sugar-free drinks such as Fresca, Diet Ginger Ale and other beverages. And they were asked about cookies, brownies, doughnuts, candy and pies.
The researchers arranged the women into five groups, called quintiles, from those who ate none of these things a week to those who ate 60 or more servings a week.
Women who drank the most sweet soft drinks had a 78 percent increased risk of endometrial cancer
The women showed one known pattern – those who were older, weighed more, who had late menopause or had a history of diabetes were at higher risk of endometrial cancer, which is diagnosed in nearly 50,000 US women every year.
“In contrast, women who ever smoked or experienced a greater number of live births were at lower risk of endometrial cancer,” the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, which is published by the American Association for Cancer Research.
Women who drank sugary drinks had a higher risk of the most common type of endometrial cancer, called Type I endometrial cancer. The more they drank, the higher the risk, the researchers found.
“The risk was 78% among women in the highest quintile of sugar-sweetened beverage intake,” they wrote.
Other studies have found that coffee and exercise reduce the risk, but Dr. Maki Inoue-Choi and colleagues did not.
“Fruit juice intake was not associated with the risk of Type I endometrial cancer,” they added.
“Similarly, neither sweet/baked good nor starch intake was associated with Type I endometrial cancer risk.”
It might not be anything special about sugary drinks, the researchers say. It might be that women who drink a lot of such drinks have other unhealthy habits, too.
And Inoue-Choi says it’s not clear why drinks and not other sweet foods showed an effect.
“One possibility is that sugar from whole foods comes with other nutrients, such as fiber,” she said in a telephone interview.
“Sugar from beverages doesn’t come with these nutrients.”
More research will be needed to tease out an explanation. But Dr. Maki Inoue-Choi notes that obesity is still, by far, the biggest risk factor for endometrial cancer, causing half of all cases.
Estrogen is one known cause of endometrial cancer, which affects the lining of the uterus. Women who take hormones, as in hormone replacement therapy, are usually given a form of progesterone, also, to protect against endometrial cancer.
Fat cells also secrete estrogen and that’s one reason why obesity can cause the disease, experts say.
There are two main types of endometrial cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute – Type I and Type II.
Dr. Maki Inoue-Choi and colleagues found that sweetened drinks only affected Type I risk. But Type I accounts for 80% of endometrial cancers.
It’s usually diagnosed early, in time for treatment, because in 90% of cases the woman has abnormal bleeding, the American Cancer Society says.
PepsiCo has decided to withdraw Mountain Dew goat commercial over criticism that it depicts racial stereotypes and makes light of violence against women.
The online Mountain Dew ad shows a battered white woman on crutches being asked to identify a suspect out of a police line-up of black men and a goat.
One blogger described the 60-second video as “arguably the most racist commercial in history”.
PepsiCo has since apologized for the ad for its Mountain Dew soft drink.
PepsiCo has decided to withdraw Mountain Dew goat racist commercial developed by Tyler the Creator
In the video, the goat threatens to beat the woman up if she identifies him to the police.
The woman eventually screams in horror and runs away.
The dialogue in the clip is a wordplay around “Dew It” – the slogan promoting Mountain Dew.
In a statement on Wednesday, PepsiCo said that it took “full responsibility” for any offence caused by commercial.
It said it had removed the ad from its online channels.
The material was developed by African-American rapper Tyler the Creator.
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