400 Million Obese People Responsible For Global Warming!
If you are obese, you are probably more responsible for global warming than you ever thought. And your contribution to global warming is really serious and very, very significant because 400,000,000 of you are obese, a newly published research finding claims!
Your often too generous uptake of food and fuel for transport is actually placing a great strain on already depleting world resources, according to some British researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
This may be too warm to handle… The finding adds that what compounds the weighty problem is that 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, adding to food shortages and higher energy prices.
By 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese, according to current World Health Organization (WHO) projections.
In the research paper published today in The Lancet, UK’s independent general medical journal, Phil Edwards PhD, Lecturer in Statistics and Ian Roberts PhD, Professor of Epidemiology say obese people contribute to global warming by walking or cycling less, fueling the demand for oil whose production process and usage we all know in relation to global warming.
Local authorities should therefore consider urban transport policies that are sustainable - decreased car use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the need for biofuels. Less food consumption will also be achieved, reducing global demand for and the price of food.
Based on the researchers’ model, nearly 40 percent of the global population is obese with a body mass index (BMI) of about 30 in comparison with normal levels of between 18 and 25.
It was found that obese people require 1,680 daily calories to sustain normal energy and another 1,280 calories to maintain daily activities, 18 percent more than someone with a stable BMI.
Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture which is responsible for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Hmm… some food for thought!
Further reading: The Lancet: Transport Policy is Food Policy (registration required)
Image credit: Mr TGT via Flickr under Creative Commons
Global warming asides, I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up an NGO where folk abroad wishing to loose weight can change a pound of flesh for a pound of flesh for the impoverished. A Pound for a Pound. Calorie Transfer.
It would work like this. I as a wieghty person will skip a meal a day for ‘x’ amount of dollars. At the end of the month I will donate the amount I have saved to an organisation that will make sure this money goes to teaching the impoverished how to grow their food,in Kenya,thus more sustainable than just a food transfer.
On the ground we would reciprocate with a blog site helping the recipients to blog their successes and gratitude. I imagine this would cause a double feel good factor for all. Anyone interested?
http://greendreams.edublogs.org
Su
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Everyone should be vegetarians. thats where it’s at
As a thin and fit person I feel that fat people are a real problem in our culture and take more resources from the rest of us. We need to unite as the beautiful people and set them straight. We need to yank that fork from their bloated fingers and make them see how repulsive they are. Shame a fatty save a whale is my motto.
With the fuel crisis, airlines are raising fares, some are even charging to check bagagges, however they have always charged for overweight baggage.
Airlines should start charging higher fairs for obese passengers. They should determine a maximum allowence for _combined weight_ of passenger and their luggage and charge accordingly. Of course, in USA they will scream “discrimination”, even more if they are obese minority people, generating lawsuits galore.
Attention airline execs: you must be concerned about surcharges for obese passengers
I hope to see solutions.
Pancho Shiell http://www.panchosays.com
if your going to blame fat people for global warming now, why not blame the big mouths who talk alot like Politicians, think about it they talk so much about it that theyre using more oxygen than a fat person does (and im not joking). theyre blaming cars, fat people, over crowding in towns and cities heck theyre even blaming cows now, but they wont blame themselves