TOXIC FOOD ENVIRONMENT INSIDE AND AROUND PUBLIC PARKS IN MEXICO CITY

Background and objectives: According to the Mexican National Institute of Statistic and Geography (INEGI), more than 60% of people attend public parks. Urbanists state that offering food in public spaces increases the participation. However, energy- dense food availability and advertising is linked with obesity. The aim of the study is to characterize the toxic food environment inside and around public parks of Mexico City. Methods: Trained interviewers performed the evaluation of the inside and around food supply and advertising of 33 parks in Mexico City. Data collection was made using a Mexican context questionnaire. Food availability was defined as those foods sold inside and around the parks. Around was defined as the circumference of the parks. Parks were mapped using three different databases including local (Roji Guide), Google and INEGI maps and were classified according to their dimensions into three typologies: 1) metropolitan (>0.01 km2), 2) local (0.003 a 0.01 km2), and 3) district (0.0004-0.003 km2). Results: Information of 5.9% metropolitan, 36.4% lineal and 12.1% district parks of Mexico City was collected. Overall, 39.4% of the food kiosks were located inside the parks, whereas 78.8% were around. The most prevalent food inside corresponds to sweet snacks (19.7%), followed by chips (18.2%); while around parks were found traditional Mexican fast food (fried tortilla with meat/chicken/pork/ beans) in restaurants (16.9%) and street vendors (16.1%). In total, 3% of the parks have food advertising inside and 15.7% around. Conclusions: While parks are the most popular public spaces to perform physical activity in Mexico City, our results show that most of the available food inside and around the parks is energy- dense food. In addition, 3% of the parks have food advertising inside. Regulatory guidelines are needed to promote healthy environments, because the beneficial contribution on health of these spaces could be attenuated by the high availability and advertising of energy-dense foods.