Beam me to Planet Gore !
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."
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.
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