Stop Eating! You’re Making Me Hot!
May 19, 2008 by Gabrielle
Filed under Green Living
Sometimes I wonder if the value of a news story can be measured by the amount of
comments it receives online. Or if the opposite is the case. Take a recent article in the LA Times entitled, Obesity as a Cause of Global Warming.
Times Health writer Rosie Mestel reports that,
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.
Ms. Mestel immediately questions the validity of the claim and wonders if similar logic could place the blame on individuals with high metabolisms who consume increased amounts of food to maintain their active lifestyles, which many would call healthy.
Like so many articles, the real fun starts when readers’ comments begin. Here, they range from wholeheartedly agreeing with Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts, to expressing frustration at the silliness of the study and diversion of focus away from real issues such as sustainable energy sources, to fat-bashing then back to enviro-bashing. It’s all pretty fascinating. Once fingers start pointing and assigning blame, one might as well be playing spin the bottle - you never know who will end up on the receiving end.
What do you think about the “study”’s conclusion? Does our weight have any correlation to our environment? Does our body mass affect global warming, or, as one commenter posits, does global warming affect our body mass?
Many thanks to Alicia from Mental Health Notes who shared this article.
It kind of rubs me the wrong way to hear/think/say that obese people are contributing significantly to global warming. For me to think “you’re overweight and causing problems for the earth” just feels wrong to me.
Of course, I’m not a scientist, I haven’t done all the research or whatever, so what do I know.
I think the real issue we should all be thinking about should be for people to do what they need to do in order to keep themselves AND the earth healthy.
Alicia, so agreed!
I really liked Ms. Mestel’s example of her super fit friend who biked 100+ miles every evening and the amount of calories he ingested - how is that any different?
There are so many reasons to maintain a healthy weight, and just as many reasons to try to keep the world around you a little healthier - I really don’t see how blame or guilt fit into a healthy approach to either topic.
And as for your last line, “what….to do in order to keep themselves AND the earth healthy”
Are you seeing a new tagline for Daily Tomorrow? I am!
Thanks for your comments!
Does the word obesity have a synonym?
Dang, wish I’d thought up your title for my post…
Fascinating topic whether you agree with the idea or not…
Healthbolt’s been doing some posting about this too and tomorrow we have FatMan Unleashed putting in his two cents on the discussion…
My thinking - Skinny or Fat, we all contribute…how much so is an individual not a weight thing.
It really irritates me that people who are supposed to be so smart could be so stupid. That is very discriminating remarks regarding “obese” people. We live in a society where people judge everyone. Who says what obesity is? A bunch of skinny people who don’t like themselves so there for they can’t like anyone else either? I am no expert but, I believe that we shouldn’t blame global warming on fat people. Maybe we should stop cutting down the trees which is the air we breath and stop building subdivisions every 10 feet. Maybe we should go back to living the way that they did in the old days when they didn’t have electricity. Maybe we should all work together and stop picking on people who can’t help what they are because it’s the way God made them. That’s okay because in the end there will be only one person that can judge us and He won’t care if we are fat, skinny, black, white, orange, purple, or whatever.