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.
Ok, fine, blah, blah, blah.
It’s Friday, so I am still going to have a steak tonight, just as I will next Friday and the next, and the next, and the next and so on..... so there.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0805/15bright/
Astronomers from UK Universities working with colleagues from Germany and Australia have calculated that the Universe is actually twice as bright as previously thought.
Could be related.
I wonder if we will be able to do just that some day?
Fat people are insulated by fat. This makes them warmer in the winter without using heating oil. Consequently, they consume less energy and save the planet.
I’ll have a big mac and fries....super size it.
The whole thing is misleading because the type of food that makes a person obese is the cheap food. If you want to get healthy, you have to spend $1000 more per year at the grocery store. And commonly, stores don't even carry the products that aren't stripped of their nutrients.
They also cast a larger shadow, which blocks the suns rays from warming more of the earth around them.
I went this way too. Sleep better at night and I am 15lbs. lighter.
Also, do you have any allergies? I have noticed a great improvement this year compared to last year. I have increased the locally grown food, especially herbs. It may be the cooler weather, but I have yet to take a pill to relieve any symptoms.
Get a load of this...
When the reduced mortality of the obese is taken into account, the obese have to be a net benefit to the planet.
Oh, I almost forgot. If the obese can be encouraged to have green burials, they would provide a larger fertilization benefit to the rain and old growth forests.
Bomb the state of Wisconsin and the city of Detroit!
HFCS is cheap because of corn subsidies. We need to either remove subsidies from corn, or add subsidies to healthier fruits and vegetables to encourage a diet shift in the US. Something is seriously wrong if 100% whole wheat breads and pastas are 200% the price of white processed breads and pastas. It should be the opposite just based on the effort to produce each one, and the reason why it isn't is probably because of market distortions created by the Dept. of Agriculture. See my post #27 for a link to a UC study on how nutritious food is more expensive.
I ‘do’ organic as much as possible, eat NOTHING with HFCS -or things I can't pronounce in them.
That's great, but I think that if we only removed white processed grains with the fiber removed, and HFCS from the American diet, it would handle most Americans' obesity problems without any further changes--although getting people outside for 20 minutes a day for a walk would be good...
Amazing. I said the same thing several months ago on another thread and got soundly rebuked for it...
Wait 'til they do the calculation that compares consumption by adults with that of children. Logan's Run, here we come...
Really, it is discriminatory towards obese people. They are an easy target at the moment...
You just know that what he really, really wanted to say was "They are a fat target at the moment", but no doubt after a moment's reflection he decided that such a statement might be a career-ender...
Michael Moore is driving up the cost of food and healthcare for all of us.
The whole world would be better off if we simply seized all of his assets and forced him to beg for food.
Well, now you have a 2-year University of California study to back you up :-)
Enviro-fascism from one end, health-fascism from the other.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us 'for own good' will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
--C.S. Lewis
You are looking at the next stage of the assault on individualism, capitalism, and our God-given liberties.
Liberty should not be for sale - our individual rights should not be subject to compromise. But, using some bogeymen (global warming, obesity, racism, terrorism, "powerful" corporations, school shootings, etc) liberties will readily be given up by the vast majority of people in return for the facade of stability, happiness, safety, security, equality, or some other illusion promised by government. Those who resist are and will continue to be labeled as enablers or profiteers of some evil, or derided for their lack of pragmatism, and, with incredible irony, for their supposed abundance of "idealism" - despite not clamoring for any notion of utopia (unlike the proprietors of authoritarianism and collectivism), but instead only valuing liberty as an end unto itself.
LOL - I KNEW this was coming, I just didn’t know it would actually happen so fast!
I’ve been thinking about writing a piece about what some people who are REALLY committed to Mother Earth can do for “her”.
Something like no more than 500 calories a day, one bowel movement per week, and some kind of self imposed fine, like a swear jar, each time one passes gas they must invest 5 dollars in carbon credits.
To avoid hypocrisy totally, some must make the ULTIMATE sacrifice, we’ve seen people set themselves on fire for a cause, what better way to make a statement than to drink the Kool-Aid, any fires will release too much CO2 into the atmosphere. STOP BREATHING you hypocrites!!!!
Communism never gets the blame.
Can I sue myself?
If so, how much can I get from myself?
Huh? Simply eliminating processed grains will solve our obesity problem? Banning HFCS will stop people from consuming other readily available sweeteners (sucrose) and will result in Americans reducing their intake of carbohydrates?
I thought the obesity issue was caused primarily by people consuming far more calories than they burn. Silly me.
Thank you! I knew that there was a reason for my existence. LOL!
It’s not nice to have fun at the expanse of the overweight.
FMCDH(BITS)
They’ve also redefined who is “fat”. BMI treats muscle, bone, and fat all the same. And dictates that a man should weigh the same as a woman.
It's all about economics. Sweeteners are cheap, especially HFCS, and starch without fiber is cheap. If sweeteners were more expensive and fiber filled foods less expensive, then people would consume more, feel fuller longer, and keep the body from peaking from sugar/carbohydrate highs and demanding another hit when the low comes around.
I would never do that. Just at the expense of Michael Moore. And Rosie O’Donnell... I forgot about her.
Socialize all of the property of both Rosie O’Donnell and Michael Moore, and you’ve eliminated the national debt, solved the world hunger problem, cured the healthcare shortage, etc. in one move, and at the same time given them both what they’ve been demanding all along.
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