Obesity adds to global warming, study finds

[IDemo]

Reuters -updated 10:15 a.m. MT, Fri., May. 16, 2008

GENEVA - Obesity contributes to global warming, too.

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school's researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.

"We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility," Edwards said in a telephone interview. "Obesity is a key part of the big picture."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24666022/

[dipsydoodle]

1. So get obese people

to give you a piggyback when you need to go somewhere.

[XemaSab]

2. I'm going to call bullshit on this

and say that obesity and climate change are symptoms of the same disease.

[Deja Q]

5. An overhyper society that wordlessly demands driving.

Telecommuting will be nice to see...

[XemaSab]

9. Not just a society that demands driving

but a society that demands that we in California eat corn from Iowa, beef from Nebraska, pork from Arkansas, soybeans from Minnesota, and so forth.

I've got half a vegetable garden covered in weeds that I'm too damn lazy to plant and plants that are dying in pots because I'm hiding inside with the Air Conditioning going full blast, can you dig it?

[tom_paine]

12. I think it is just our Primate Natures that we have failed to overcome.

Or, for that matter, even TRIED to overcome. Or, for THAT matter, even considered or pondered in the context that perhaps they are now negative adaptations that were once positive adaptations during prehistory.

I think you are correct XemaSab, and I would go so far as to say that obesity, climate change AND overpopulation are all part of the same problem, which at it's root stems from these positive evolutionary adaptations from prehistory which become murderously negative adaptations in modern industrial civilization.

[depakid]

3. Not a huge inferential leap there

Fast food = Obesity.

Fast food = tremendous food miles and other major contributions to climate change.

[Deja Q]

4. Apart from OCCASIONAL snack foods, my diet is mostly vegetable...

Some meat, but I'm careful about fat and other content.

I could exercise more, but when all those green jobs open up, people doing those jobs will get exercise by default.

A 230 pound man vs a 180 pound man in a passenger vehicle. Net change isn't as much as driving 55mph vs 65mph, but whatever... being fit helps everyone, for what it's worth. Why is it worth it, again?

Pity candy bar prices don't go up while prices of proper foods do.

:shrug:

[XemaSab]

10. I usually have about 50 lbs of books, field clothes, safety equipment, or whatever in the car

(Dammit, if you see a snake, you have to BE PREPARED to identify the sucker. Ditto for butterflies, Mexican birds, plants, animal tracks, cows... and that's before you get into the skull and carcass salvaging stuff. This is SCIENCE, dammit. :P )

The amount of energy spent moving the people in the car versus moving the car itself is TINY... I think I heard 5%...

[shain from kane]

6. Don't mortality tables show that they do not live as long? Fewer years, fewer resources used. This

is bullshit.

[papau]

7. you are correct - enough thin persons with anti normal size folks bias

[NNadir]

8. Both Al Gore and I agree that obesity is carbon sequestration.

I could, of course, use this sequestered carbon to run a bicycle, in which case my gut would become a renewable energy storage system.

If I marketed as the latter, I'll bet we could get brazillions of "world's largest renewable energy storage system installed in New Jersey" type threads started.

[tom_paine]

13. LOL! My gut, too. In fact, I think I am going to have a shot of bourbon and a beer

to increase the amount of my carbon sequestered!

:rofl:

[stuntcat]

11. 'heavy' consumption

My fattest in-laws not only consume lots of food that was shipped around the gd world but I've also noticed they throw a lot of it away. That part's weird to me, I will not throw food away. Once when I was out to dinner with them and ordered something small they asked me why and started saying I wasn't eating enough and finally I said there are kids starving to DEATH, like right now. Then they laughed and said "Not at this table!" I kid you not.

Like Xema said, it's symptoms of the same disease, the results falling back on each other.

(and in response to some of the posts here :eyes: I am not underweight)