New Scientist magazine has published a very insightful article by Ian Roberts in which the writer makes a link between obesity and global warming. Says Roberts: “We tend to think of obesity only as a public-health problem, but many of its causes overlap with those of global warming. Car dependence and labour-saving devices have cut the energy people expend as they go about their lives at the same increasing the amount of fossil fuel they burn. It’s no coincidence that obesity is most prevalent in the U.S.”
It’s an eye-opening argument that is absolutely accurate. The gist of Roberts’s thought is: overconsumption of food and sedentarism means more carbon emissions in every aspect of life because of increased waste production and energy/fuel consumption. Further evidence that global warming and obesity are linked is the fact that developed countries, the ones that pollute most, are the ones with the higher numbers of obese people.
The article is not available online but the magazine offers a preview
here.
No wonder you’re fat. You ate all those twinkies you stockpiled for Y2K.
So what you’re saying is every “energy-saving” convenience device we buy is really a fat-gaining device. After all, our personal energy has to be stored somewhere.