Mexico City puts police on diet

(Lisa F. Young)

Authorities in Mexico City are putting the police on a diet, in a health campaign in the world's second-most obese country, after the United States.

Some of the 1,300 police officers taking part in the new scheme, run by the capital's Public Security and Health ministries, were weighed, measured and examined in a public ceremony Thursday.

"We can't ask them to stop eating tortas (big Mexican sandwiches) and tacos," said Nora Frias, a local police official.

"We can tell them that if they eat a torta today, they have to balance it in the next meal with some vegetables."

Seven out of 10 officers are obese in the Mexican capital, which is strewn with street food stands, according to official figures.

Police officers will undertake monthly medicals under the new campaign, and be weighed again in six months' time, Frias said.

Some 40 percent of Mexican adults are overweight and 30 percent are obese, according to the health ministry.