Posted on 05/16/2008 9:29:21 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average.
They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil.
The result is that the poor struggle to afford food and greenhouse gas emissions rise, the Lancet reported.
It comes as the World Health Organization predicts the obese population will double by 2015 to 700m.
In the UK, nearly a quarter of adults are classed obese, twice as many as there were in the 1980s.
The team found that obese people require 1,680 daily calories to sustain normal energy and another 1,280 to maintain daily activities - a fifth more than normal.
The higher consumption of food has a two-fold effect, researchers said.
First of all the increasing demand for food, drives up production.
This means that agricultural processes are using more oil to meet demand, which contributes to the rising cost of fuel.
The cost of fuel is then passed on in the cost of food, making it more difficult for poorer areas to afford it.
Prices
What is more, the researchers said obese people are likely to rely on transport more and put more strain on that transport because of their mass, which again drives up prices and usage.
But the researchers said there was a solution.
Phil Edwards, who co-authored the article, said: "Urban transport policies that promote walking and cycling would reduce food prices by reducing the global demand for oil and promotion of a normal weight.
And they added: "Decreased car use would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"Transport and food policy and the importance of sustainable transport must not be overlooked."
But Dr David Haslam, of the National Obesity Forum, said it was "stretching it a bit" to blame the obese in the way.
"Really, it is discriminatory towards obese people. They are an easy target at the moment, but I think the causes of climate change and rising food prices is much more complex."
PING!
I’m overweight, so sue me.
The second biggest culprit: HUNGER!
Raise food prices !
Let’s sacrifice algore to the global warming gods........
Methane gas....OMG, what other money making scams can people come up with? I’m sure this research group got paid millions to research this junk!!!!
free dixie,sw
This was reported in the “journal” Lancet - you know, the one that reported (fraudulently) that 600,000 Iraqis are dead because of our actions in OIF/OEF.
Ted Kennedy comes to mind.
They could say the same thing about immigrants. If the immigrants didn’t migrate they’d be stuck in their home country consuming less food, less fuel and they wouldn’t be obese.
Noblesse obese.
Anything published in the UK can be considered the death rattle of a lost society, and dismissed with contempt.
But in the spirit of good sportsmanship, I will help their article, by summarizing the thought:
"Put fat people on the trains to the Smokers' Camps", is that it? Do I win?
I thought it was the smokers!?! /sarc
“Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say.”
I thought everybody, and particularly the United States, was responsible for global warming.
One wonders what the ideal citizen might look like to these folks. Let’s see - skinny, doesn’t move around, doesn’t eat anything, doesn’t use any fossil fuel for entertainment, doesn’t heat his or her house, doesn’t exhale deadly carbon dioxide - I know! A corpse.
If obese people want to see the future, look at what has been done to smokers for 20 years. The machine created to torture smokers will now be used on you.
Marxism on the march!
first, go after the chemical companies that load our foods with poisons -
I ‘do’ organic as much as possible, eat NOTHING with HFCS -or things I can't pronounce in them.
I grow veggies and buy from local farmers and otherwise try to eat foods like I grew up with on a little farm in the forests of Maine -
Food manufacturers are intent on one thing: MONEY (and the FDA is in bed with them) - and that includes lots of chemicals to prolong shelf-life = which reduces the consumers “shelf-life”...
Bottom line: we need to take charge of our life/health. We are the only ones, ultimately, who give a rats rump about us.
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