Mexico City, Oct 16 (EFE).  – Some 4.5 million Mexicans living in poverty benefit from government programs that put food on their tables, President Enrique Peña Nieto said while leading a World Food Day ceremony.

“We’re working on different fronts against poverty and food insecurity. To get results we have to combine our efforts,” Peña Nieto said during a visit to San Felipe del Progreso, a small town in the central state of Mexico.

Food insufficiency in this town was reduced by 6 percent between 2010 and 2014, while extreme poverty was cut by 19 percent, according to the Intermediate Results of the National Crusade against Hunger published in August 2015 by the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy.

“This is an excellent day to renew our intention and political commitment to eradicating hunger, extreme poverty and malnutrition,” the representative in Mexico of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Fernando Soto Baquero, said in San Felipe del Progreso.

Soto Baquero noted that the Mexican Prosper Program has been highlighted in the FAO’s latest State of Food and Agriculture report as an example of how to reduce poverty and hunger among the needy.

Through Prosper, 26 million people in Mexico were favored with cash transfers on certain conditions, making it the third largest program for social protection in the world, trailing only Janani Suraksha Yojana of India which covers 78 million people, and Bolsa Familia (Family Allowance) in Brazil, aiding 49 million.

Mexico has seen significant progress in food security but still has a long way to go.

The prevalence of poverty-induced hunger dropped by 6.9 percent in the 1990-1992 period, and by at least 5 percent between 2014-2016.

In Latin America today only Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Venezuela and Uruguay have indices of hunger below the 5 percent threshold, according to U.N. figures.

Blanca Saint Martin, a Mexican nutritionist with more than 20 years’ experience in clinical practice, sees World Food Day, celebrated every Oct. 16, as an excellent occasion for raising awareness about a plan for eating right and leading an active, healthy life.

“As individuals we have the right to choose what we eat and the amount of physical activity we practice, and the power to keep food from being wasted and to promote a fair distribution of resources to reduce the malnutrition suffered by many around our country,” the expert said.

Two extremes in terms of nutrition persist in Mexico: those who still haven’t enough to eat on the one hand and the many either overweight or obese on the other.

“We must align our public policies very specifically to resolve that problem – both malnutrition and obesity are multifaceted conditions whose resolution requires the participation of all sectors,” the nutritionist said.

In Mexico more than 70 percent of adults are overweight and 32 percent of the adults are obese. EFE