Now the season of excess is over, we might need an excuse to cut down a bit. And this might also help the planet too, as reported in the i newspaper:
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Greenhouse gases caused by food and transport means obesity is accelerating climate change, new study finds
Obesity also increases the amount of carbon dioxide a person’s body produces, compared to their “normal-weight state”, as the metabolic process of breaking down food into energy and body building blocks such as proteins and carbohydrates becomes bigger.
As a result, obesity has pushed up the UK’s carbon footprint by 2.9 per cent, or 16 million tonnes a year, according to the study, published in the journal Obesity. The increase in the UK is much higher than the global average, with obesity contributing 1.6 per cent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, amounting to 700 million tonnes in total.
File:Red Apple.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
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The NHS looked at a study earlier this year:
Obesity ‘adds to climate change’ | nhs.uk
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And at the beginning of the year, the Food Climate Research Network, based at Oxford University, looked at how three factors are inextricably connected:
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Obesity, undernutrition, and climate change
This report from The Lancet Commission identifies the drivers behind what it terms ‘The Global Syndemic’, i.e. co-occurring pandemics, of obesity, undernutrition and climate change. The report finds that no country has successfully reversed its epidemic of obesity because the underlying causes have not been solved.