Urban Diabetes, the 'Slow-Motion Emergency' That Threatens Mexico Agencia EFE
go to original January 25, 2016

In Mexico, over 70 percent of citizens are overweight or obese and 14 percent of Mexican adults now suffer from diabetes, though half of those affected aren't even aware they have the disease. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the struggle to bring the disease under control. (PBS NewsHour)

City life creates “habits, possibilities and demands” that have made diabetes, together with obesity, Mexico’s worst health problem, architect and urban planner Richard de Pirro said in an interview with EFE.

According to data collected as part of the program “Cities Changing Diabetes,” which studies patterns of the illness in different cities including the Mexican capital, two-thirds of the world’s population suffering from diabetes live in urban areas.

It is a “slow-motion emergency” because “the effects are not immediate,” according to De Pirro, who teaches architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM.

For example, the division between residential and industrial districts in Mexico City imposes long commutes on workers.

Citizens travel for hours from one place to another every day, and that “forces them to eat in fast-food establishments,” the urban planner said

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 15.9 percent of the Mexican population suffers from diabetes.

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