The experimentally observed loss of superfluidity by introducing fermions to the boson Hubbard system on an optical lattice is explained. We show that the virtual transitions of bosons to higher Bloch bands, coupled with contact boson-fermion interactions of either sign, result in an effective increase of the boson on-site repulsion. If this renormalization of the on-site potential is dominant over the fermion screening of the boson interactions, the Mott insulating lobes of the Bose-Hubbard phase diagram will be enhanced for either sign of the boson-fermion interactions. We discuss the implications for cold-atom experiments where expansion of the Mott lobes by fermions has been conclusively established.