Days later, while the models were probably still recovering from their near-mile trek  in heels  Mexico produced the largest meatball in the world, which weighed in at 109 pounds. Prepared by the chefs at the Ritz Carlton in Cancún, the meatball was supposed to promote a film based on the children’s book “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” about the mythical town of Chewandswallow whose residents are amazed at all the food that rains down from the heavens. After Mexico’s record was confirmed, besting a modest 72-pound, 9-ounce meatball, the giant mass of beef was served to onlookers.

Months earlier, in January, the record-breaking focus was on dessert. Chef Miguel Ángel Quezada and a team of 55 chefs in Mexico City created the world’s largest cheesecake, using almost a ton of cream cheese and yogurt, 551 pounds of sugar and 331 pounds of butter. It took 60 hours to create the two-ton monstrosity, which was chopped up into 20,000 servings.

Mexico also set a kissing record this year, as about 40,000 people locked lips on Valentine’s Day in Mexico City in the Zócalo, which happens to be among the largest city squares in the world. The smoochers beat a British record of 32,648 kissers, which had held since 2007. A few months later, the Mexican government began discouraging people from kissing for fear of spreading swine flu.

Not all of Mexico’s record-breaking attempts go as planned. In January, Mexico’s National Association of Matadors declared that Michel Lagravere, an 11-year-old known as Michelito, had set the record at his age for the most baby bulls killed in a two-hour fight. He brought down six of them.

Image An 11-year-old bullfighter set an age-group record in Tijuana. Credit... Guillermo Arias/Associated Press

But Guinness refused to recognize the effort, declaring on its Web site, “We do not accept records based on the killing or harming of animals.” Michelito was defiant, though, saying in his high-pitched voice: “It’s all the same to me because in the world of bullfighting the record is now part of history, although it may not be for Guinness.”

No record holds forever, of course. Manuel Uribe, a Mexican and the world’s fattest man in 2006, slimmed down from 1,230 pounds to about half that, losing the title. He has told reporters that he now hopes to return to the record book, as the person who has lost the most weight.