MEXICO CITY – Mexican doctors pointed to parents as the reason Mexico leads the world in child obesity, a problem made worse in this country by the lack of sports training.

“We parents are guilty (for the obesity,) because we’re teaching our children to eat badly,” specialist Manuel Mirabent, president of Mexico’s school of obesity and nutrition, told Efe.

Figures reviewed in the Obesity, Nutrition and Family symposium, held Thursday in the Mexican capital, indicated that 70 percent of Mexican children are overweight, and that this country has forged ahead of the United States as the world leader in obese youngsters.

Mexico holds second place in obesity among adults with about 46 percent being overweight, half of whom never seek treatment to control their girth.

For Mirabent, parents think that by providing food they justify the fact that during the week they tend to leave their kids either alone, with family members or in day-care centers, because they have to work.

“Working is not to be criticized, but what happens is that on weekends (the parents) go to fast-foods restaurants and give their kids what they ask for, in a way they hope will justify their usual absence through the food they provide,” Mirabent said.

The problem of obesity in the country has increased due to bad eating habits and the bad habits handed down to the kids in Mexican families, he said.

As an example, Mirabent mentioned the old Mexican tradition that babies should eat an egg yolk sweetened with sugar to assure their health and growth.

“Who says that milk should be sweetened? Mothers do it because she was taught to do those things. Who says that bread has to be eaten with certain dishes? These are customs that we inherit,” he said.

Mirabent said that Mexican kids eat less but consume more junk food, and that food is customarily used as an incentive, positive or negative.

“A bag of potato chips is equivalent to a complete meal,” the expert said as an example of the quality of food that Mexican youngsters generally have at hand.

The solution, Mirabent said, lies in teaching children to eat nutritious food that looks attractive and tastes good.

“People choose food that looks good and tastes good, they eat what looks attractive.”

Most Mexicans have no sports culture and many more go to sports schools when they can’t be taught much and their obesity problem is already acute, Nelson Vargas, ex-sports minister of Mexico, said.

Vargas, an expert in sports training, also pointed to parents as the reason children lack the sports culture that would help them have a better quality of life in the future.

Childhood obesity in Mexico has reached epidemic levels and the complications to health could reduce the life expectancy of younger generations, according to experts. EFE.