Obesity as a cause of global warming?

That pesky obesity thing. First it forced Disneyland to increase the sizes of its theme-park costumes, and hospitals to buy larger hoists and beds. Now, in a letter published Friday in the medical journal Lancet, two scientists write that obese people are disproportionately responsible for high food prices and greenhouse gas emissions because they consume 18% more food energy due to their greater body mass -- and require increased quantities of fuel to transport themselves and the food they eat. "Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food," write the authors, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of the evocatively named London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

We don't imagine Edwards and Roberts wrote their letter to be mean -- their point seems to be that it would be good for various reasons if urban policies worked to promote biking and walking -- and we haven't yet heard of mobs with torches roving the streets in search of those with BMIs of 30 or above. Nonetheless, Yale University has been quick with a news release urging "caution on obesity and climate change link."

Declares Kelly Brownell, director of the university's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, "Saying that obese people are contributing to climate change is highly stigmatizing and assigns blame to the individuals who are obese rather than the conditions driving the obesity in the first place." Things, he says, like junk food marketing aimed at children, the demise of P.E. programs, behemoth portions offered up in restaurants, more.

I guess, too, we could always point a finger at those lean people we all know who have such high, wasteful metabolisms they can eat what they want, lift not a finger yet stay skinny as a rake. And how can I defend a friend of mine who consumes thousands of calories so he can get on his bicycle and go for 100-mile rides -- only to end up at the very same place he started from, only hungrier? (And by the way, he drives a car -- five miles -- to work.)

--Rosie Mestel

photo credit: Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[John Spencer]

What a crock of crap, I suppose taxi cabs promote prostitution, cows milk promotes beastiality and being born white promotes racial conflict too.

[Bob]

"the conditions driving the obesity in the first place."
Lack of self-control? Waaah

[hugh]

Anybody who consumes food that is not from their own garden is contributing to global warming. For instance, costs of transportation of supermarket veggies from California or Mexico to New England are significant. If someone is 20% overweight that means 20% more food has to be transported to the 30 to 40% of the population that is obese. Factor in petroleum derived fertilizer, water that has to be pumped and sprinkled, etc and one can make a strong case about obesity's effect on global warming. But you can also make the case for meat eaters contributing to global warming. Not only do cattle produce methane they also use ten times as much grain per pound compared to direct grain consumption by humans. Then consider all the production and transportation costs of delivering the meat to market and it becomes clear that meat eaters are far more significant in terms of global warming. But in the long run you have to look at a multitude of causes for global warming, although consumption habits are a significant factor.

[Rick Jones]

Every month it's something new to make me say: "Now I've heard it all." I guess I'm just a fool. Isn't there an obesity tax break too? What does it matter anyway? If we are all consuming and spending money, isn't that good for the economy? haha!

[Juan]

1 + 1 = 2

18% less food fat people eats = 18% more food the world has around

18% less gass they need to move = 18% less emissions

etc.

So what is this all about? Fat people are RESPONSIBLE for THAT. They are not to be blamed. But they are to take responsability for their unhealthy and wasteful habits.

[Walter]

Cute notion but as off the mark as every other cause...the only issue that is never seriously addressed is the only issue that really needs to be; this planet is severely over-populated. Every 'serious global problem' is simply a result of this fundamental fact. Good luck reconciling ever increasing population with rapidly dwindling resources. Be fruitful, dummy...multiply.

[Gregor]

Well, wait. Is it that obese people consume more food energy due to their greater body mass, or is it that they have greater body mass due to the consumption of more food energy? Shifting the muscle-to-fat ratio toward the muscle end is said to increase metabolism, so (as Rosie Mestel suggests) wouldn't slimming everybody down actually increase their caloric requirements?

[David]

I guess then we should continue to keep all those starving people in 3rd world nations starving. Boy, we don't want to further contribute to Global Warming by allowing them to eat more.

This, of course would dramatically increase the Greenhouse gases and we can't have that.

And of course, the increase in fuel requirements. Let's blame the fat people. Not the auto industry for building very poor fuel efficient vehicles, or Goverment and Industry for not finding no polluting fuel sources sooner. No, lets blame the fat people. If we had solar powered vehicles or Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles or some other non-polluting fuel source that a person's weight wouldn't make a difference.

I want to congratulate Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts for getting their 15 minutes of fame by coming up with this truly ludacris idea.

[Charlotte]

This study has it all wrong. Global warming causes obesity, not the other way around.

[Indigo]

That's a really unfortunate point of view on the part of the study and the part of the commenters.

Not everyone who is overweight or fat is just lazy and has no self control. There are a number of legitimate medical conditions that cause weight gain. Nor does everyone who's overweight consume an inordinate amount of food.

Yes, we as a nation could all stand to get more exercise, but the problem there is that there isn't enough time in the day to commute to one's job by bike or on foot. To say nothing of climactic concerns.

[Benjamin]

So in other words, people who use more food and fossil energy resources contribute more to higher food costs and climate change related to burning fossil fuels. I am glad these two became scientists else the world might never have known.

Sarcasm aside, there are some really good reasons for society to frown on obesity, not the least of which is their impact on rising health care costs. This nonsense about not wanting to create a stigma about obesity and blaming everyone but the obese person for their condition needs to stop. Don't get me wrong, I do agree that junkfood marketers are little better than tobacco peddlers and that they should be held accountable, but, not to the exclusion of holding the individuals accountable.

Nature doesn't care if you fall off a cliff out of ignorance or if someone else lured you to fall of the cliff, you will still fall and plummet to your death in accordance with her laws all the same. Obese people need to get out of the victim mindset that well meaning but misguided people are attempting to provide for them and get their health back in order because no one else can do it for them. The people providing them with this victim mindset justification are paving a highway to hell with their good intentions.

Hold the junkfood peddlers responsible, YES, ABSOLUTELY. But do not remove the responsibility from the individual, otherwise they will instantly be defeated by the mindset that they are victims and can't do anything about it.

[TK]

C'mon guys. This Freakonomics BS can't be treated as a system of truth.
It's REALLY, REALLY just for fun, a game of mental gymnastics.
Really!

[Sean Kladek]

So if obese people begin to eat normal portions, that 20% extra food will no longer have to be transported across the country to more populous areas. Now we are stuck with the choice of reducing the output of farms, which, combined with the hypothesized lower food prices, would hurt the already struggling farmers, or we can ship the food to parts of the world that don't have enough to go around, thus fueling the global warming problem and solving nothing, except maybe, in the long run, aiding in the development of third world countries. The developing of these countries however poses another problem. They will most likely opt for the cheaper and less efficient technologies (think China or India) which do little but add to the overwhelming amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

[sejanus]

Walter is exactly right. On the other hand it does expand the category of people we can blame for everything that's wrong. We can add fat to the description of angry white middle aged males that cause all the problems. Women, the young, non-whites, gay, lesbian and the trans gendered and are inherently victims and thus incapable of doing harm to the environment.

[Lewis B. Sckolnick]

A full-sized woman walked into the drug store and entered the telephone booth. It took a crew from the telephone company to take the booth apart and get her out and all of that was the first step towards global warming.

[MrQ]

Oh my God... I guess you'll have to KILL all of those wasteful fat people and save the poler bears...

MrQ
the-continuum.org

[Mislav]

Larger people consume more goods. How so very surprising.

[H K]

ok, I am a Fat man who has produced more than 10 thousand tons of fish meat by the farm I made, with other fats one's. What about the people who only spent because they live for words like 99% of the population. These guys must be with Mr. Dawson (For these "gentlemen" what can be worst than been a black fat man?) cleaning toilets with their noble prizes.

[Dan]

I knew it was all Al Gore's fault.

[Anthony Isgar]

Wow.

Why don't we waste more money on useless studies when we could be spending it on research into alternative energy. Whether or not humans are the cause of global warming does not matter, we need to get away from fossil fuel dependence. All the money wasted on studies like this could have been much better spent on a useful fusion reactor or more efficient solar panels. Amazing that these people get grants for research that does absolutely nothing to increase the standard of living around the world or anything at all positive in the least.

It just irritates me to see money thrown at useless projects when we could be using it to cure cancer or help China reduce its emissions of all sorts of harmful pollutants.

[MadcapMagician]

well this is the biggest load of **** i have ever heard.... yall want to talk about wasteing rescources ... what about the wasted rescources to print and istribute this recycled toiletpaper ... =/ I am a big man, I would have what you call a bmi over 30, but last time I went for a check up my doctor was surprised to find that my cholesterol was way lower than his, my blood pressure too was lower, and my doctor is a health nut who runs 3 to 3 miles a day , excersises, "eats right" and yet as an "obese" person im healthier than he is ? explain that to me ? ...

this whole notion that "fat" people are to blame for everything is just plain sumb. if these guys who wrote this crap were to have blamed say ... Black people for golbal warming they would have been called racist morons, but because they blamed "fat" people its OK... this seems to be the only form descrimination scocially acceptable...

hell why dont we make it complete and blame fat people for the assassination of Kennedy, the rise of Hitler, the great depression.... hell lets go all the way and even blame fat people for crucifying Jesus Christ.....

get a freakin grip people.

[toka]

Once again, we see Global Warming as the Holy Excuse to regulate to the most minute degree what people eat, where they live, where they work, what they wear, how they transport themselves and how far for what reasons. Climate Fear is being used to push total human control.

[Art]

My mother-in law is a major contributor to global warming if obesity is to blame!

[Jay Ratcliff]

sounds like we got a lot of fat people posting here.

[Yacko]

"18% less food fat people eats = 18% more food the world has around"

Its not as simple as that. There are many things that contribute. If a person is x% obese over the course of a 70 year life, it is actually a much smaller number annually compared to the growth rate in miles driven per year, growth in sf of the average residence and the percentage of population growth in the US. Why not castigate exercise fanatics who might eat less food if they were not burning extra calories all the while without producing any useful work?