According to the Food Industry Development Center Inc. (Food Center) and Yale University, in Mexico 163 liters of cola are consumed a year. It has replaced the United States, which occupied first place and registered a per capita consumption of 113 liters during the same time period.

Mexico also places first internationally in childhood and adult obesity, as well as a first place in childhood diabetes. According to official data, 70% of adults and 30% of children suffer from excess weight or obesity around the country.

According to experts, the situation will keep getting worse. The direct and indirect costs for the Mexican public health system derived from weight problems will reach $150 billion pesos in 2017. According to the World Public Health Nutritional Association, it is expected that one out of every three Mexican children born in 2010 will suffer from diabetes during their lifetime.

Due to this scenario, the World Health Organization, supported by the UN, recommended that the federal government develop integral policies to combat obesity including fiscal measures. As a result, the reform to the Special Tax on Production and Services (IEPS, for its Spanish initials) was approved. It taxes flavored beverage with added sugar at one peso per liter. Nevertheless, even with the new taxes, Coca Cola Femsa's income increased 24.7% in 2014, in 2015 the company expects consumption to remain constant.

What role do the local governments play in this scenario? A crucial one, that of regulating advertising, because it creates an environment that promotes consumption.

According to Dr. Carola Garcia Calderon, coordinator for the UNAM's Center for Studies in Communication Sciences, advertising is an important factor that has contributed to the fact that over the past 20 years excess weight has become a public health problem.

Companies are eager to promote and impose their brands and products while using urban spaces as large catalogues of places to expand their advertising. Crowning buildings, facades, billboards, urban real estate, and automobiles literally transformed into mobile billboards, serve as support for all kind of publicity elements.

Among these elements it seems that at least one is justified, the painted and marker-covered facades, which Coca Cola calls "an action meant to improve the establishment's physical aspect." This is only the pretext that many years ago started a phenomenon that has given place to a business in itself; no one currently dares to talk about the company's generosity, but to use the space as large scale advertising on the street without having to pay taxes for it.

Small businesses tend to fall back on the sponsorship of big brands to set up their spaces and merchandise their businesses. Even though, at first, it is understandable that it is convenient to delegate obtaining tables, chairs and signs from "generous" companies; in the long run, the negative effects that result from the "sponsorship" of these companies does not only affect the establishment owner's capacity to offer variety to the consumer- through monopolization hidden under sheepskin- but they also visually pollute with campaigns that associate consumption with happiness, when their products are responsible for the national epidemic of excess weight, obesity and diabetes.

At the local level, outdoor advertising of soda has found an acting field with few restrictions. The municipality has practically abandoned authoritative and regulatory activity to become a simple observer. If this were not the case, how could it be explained that thousands of businesses across the city operate with facades covered with brands that do not pay a single peso in taxes for them; in addition ignoring the Regulations for Signs, Announcements and Similar Advertising. Worse yet, how to explain that public space is used to promote perverse advertising campaigns, such as those that show pregnant women promoting the consumption of Coca Cola, or better said, promoting addiction from within the womb.... Continue reading article here

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