MEXICO CITY — COVID-19 has hit Mexico especially hard. And some say many citizens are not helping their cause as they continue to drink soda and eat junk food.
Some Mexican states like Tabasco and Oaxaca have approved junk-food bans for children, Bloomberg News reported. But don’t look for a national ban any time soon, the story said.
On Wednesday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, better known as AMLO, rejected a proposal by senators from his own party for substantial tax hikes on those items, Bloomberg reported. Obrador, during a press conference, also refused to say anything about banning junk food and soda to Mexican youth.
Instead, Obrador would prefer if his government would mount an information campaign on the consumption of junk food and soda. Health officials believe that obesity as well as hypertension exacerbate the effects of CVID-19, which has gripped the world and Mexico.
Finance minister Arturo Herrera told Televisa that the middle of a pandemic is no time to raise taxes.
“You can’t traffic in the health of the people,” Lopez Obrador said during the press conference. “The government should carry out nutritional information campaigns.”
Tabasco and Oaxaca have enacted junk food bans for children and other states are considering such actions as well.
Lopez Obrador’s party supports a soda tax but the president does not.
The Morena party wants to increase the soda tax to five pesos per liter from 1.26 pesos. The plan would also increase the tax on high-calorie foods to 25 percent from 8 percent. The bill, sponsored by Oaxaca’s Morena Senator Salomon Jara, would require proof of age to buy junk food and would prohibit their sale inside schools, Bloomberg reported.
“They have been the culprits of major health problems throughout our country for children and youth,” Jara told Bloomberg. “Our objective is not to increase the tax just to hike it. Our objective is for the industry to change the nutritional content of junk food.”
