Obesity contributes to global warming

We all contribute to global warming, our current lifestyles use masses of electricety and fuel, however if you have a more active and healthy lifestyle, walking and jogging instead of watching TV or playing video games for example you obviously would leave a smaller carbon footprint, but overall we need to dramatically change our lifestyles, and that may mean we all end up having a simmilar lifestyle, dependant more on physical labour and exercise for transportation or entertainment. the technological era of television and cheap factory food has allowed many people to become obese, if we have to cut back on lazy technology, wasting electricity and time, obese people may find it easier to become healthy.

Also the life expectancy for women has gone down in recent years for the first time since the civil war, largley due to obesity and the way Americans eat.

Great photo

Time to Work-out! Everyone contributes to global warming, so we all get the blame.

Let's all hop on bikes and create our own energy from it....AND get skinny! :)

@ SelmaA: The photo is taken from the Argentinian TV show "Cuestion de peso" ("A matter of weight"). The girl in the picture celebrates her weight loss.
(credits: Associated Press)

i have no pity whatsoever for any fat-body without a good excuse .

I think the solution is deeper than just cutting back a little. It is a cultural mind set that needs to be changed, obesity is a symptom of a larger problem. If people's minds could be changed in regards to consumption then subsequently personal care may change as well. Consider that as a result of eating a McDonalds burger, it is not just a problem of weight that will be gained, but also (as someone mentioned) the beef industry and equally as important the acres of forest that is cut down to wrap this shit up.

Did we really need another reason for obesity to be bad for society?

lets just get rid of fatties

that picture...

How do they have carbon footprints when they barely use they're feet. *sarcasm

Astonishing! No we have a selfless, more valid reason to get some exercise!

The truth hurts, im not against fat people, but most of them need to get into shape because being overweight is not good for your health.

What a load of horse hockey. Fat people contributing to global warming? How about the bombs being dropped on brown people in the middle east? What about that global warming?

just another push to make me lose some more weigth :)

I think the message here is that there are all kinds of aspects of our lifestyles that affect the environment. And changing your lifestyle can be quite a feat.

Lol wow - and youdd think ppl would loose wieght just to help out their own personal health - now that i know it affects myslef as well kinda ticks me off about their obviously inconsideration. I car pool, (and drive a camry) use energy efficient lighting through out my home, pay to recycyle, and dont use hair spray Lol and now i can say I'm not obese and in these ways hopfully im doing some good ... you hope at least

When I first read the head line, I thought it was going to be about flatulence and how fat people's farting contributes to global warming...but its not.

ha! obesity is apart of the BIG picture.
That is true people depend on cars and transportations more causing them to gain wait instead of walking or riding bikes. Cars are a necessity

Global warming and obesity, are you Kidding ME!!
Lets stop right there and go right to the Money being spent on this rediculous study. Its obvoius, if you have more mass, its takes more energy to move you. Lets spend the money on getting the solar panels on the buildings these "obese", FAT people work because the A/C needs more energy to cool these big people during the summer and the electric motor to carry their fatbuns up to the desired floor is definitely burning more energy. I know I am not better than anyone on this great planet, but I am all about person responsibilty. Lets skip through the crap, all this study is doing is pointing a finger for no reason at nothing. Lets be honest here, what the heck are the priorities of the so called reaserchers?

are you serious?...i it just me or now everything is a cause of global warming...

re: my comment above

I just received an email through Current accusing me of being very offensive with my comment. I apologize if I offended. What I meant was that obesity (and I mean obesity, not those who are a little overweight) is very costly not only to individuals but to society as a whole, and we knew that already without attaching carbon footprint/environmental damage statistics to the "obese lifestyle." Just as any other addiction is a drain on society's resources, so is the addiction to food. If I offended, I'm sorry.

I'd blame McDonald's for global warming. Oh yeah, and obesity.

I'm feeling a lot of strong feelings about this particular piece. Here wrapped together like two buns around a big mac are the two things I hate more then hate itself. Fat people who don't know when to stop taking, who rely totally on having everything given to them. Never thinking about people that have it so much worse. Not feeling a shred of guilt as they tear into there fast food, live the American dream. To stupid an slow to realize there contributing to a global problem.

Global warming. A real problem that gets swept under the rug. Our leaders in power continue to pretend like it's not an issue as the water level rises around us, as animals that once thrived on this earth slowly and steadily cease to exist, as our air gets more and more polluted we continue to stand around and believe the lies our government pumps into our mainstream TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. I feel we are all doomed. We've grown to comfortable in out existence and we will die because of it. The time for action it seems, has come and gone and all thats left to do is enjoy what time we have left. Teach your kids how to fish people because they will be doing a lot of it in the near future. For the worlds sake I hope I'm wrong.

There's a lot of anti-fat racism in the comments here. Obesity can have several different causes, and many obese people hardly eat anything at all yet remain fat. Obesity is an illness - in fact, it is several different diseases depending on the cause. I know thin people who eat like a sty-full of pigs but don't put any weight on, that's their nature and their metabolism.

I find prejudice against people who are ill very offensive and fundamentally wrong. It is akin to prejudice against handicapped people (both physically handicapped and mentally handicapped), and it reflects extremely negatively on those who harbour and express such prejudices.

Some obesities are not due to quantity of food but to what food is consumed. It is to be noted that in the west and in industrial countries, obesity is prevalent among the poor because all they can afford is the wrong type of food, unhealthy food, and fast food because it is cheap and they have neither the time nor the money to prepare healthy balanced meals because they work so many hours a day just to survive. So obesity is also part of class differences and class warfare.

The Science of Obesity - Programmed To Be Fat

BACKGROUND: The statistics are simply astounding. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report 66 percent of adults in the United States are overweight and 17 percent of our kids are, too. Another 40 million adults are obese and three million are morbidly obese. Eight out of every 10 Americans over the age of 25 are overweight! As a result, rates of disease related to overweight and obesity have skyrocketed in recent years. About 20 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, a disease worsened by inactivity and being overweight. Heart disease continues to be the leading killer of both men and women in the United States today -- an estimated 70 percent of cases of cardiovascular disease are related to obesity. Forty-two percent of breast and colon cancers are diagnosed in obese individuals, 30 percent of gall bladder surgery is reportedly related to obesity and 26 percent of obese patients have high blood pressure. It's not about appearance anymore -- America's rapid weight gain is costing us our health and our lives.

FAT GENES? There's been much debate on the root cause of obesity. Is it a disease just like any other? Is it a lifestyle choice? Or is it, as many argue, out of one's hands and predetermined at birth? New research suggests it may be. The FTO gene has been linked to obesity and some say it can help explain why some people easily put on weight while people who make similar lifestyle decisions stay slim. In 2007, British scientists discovered when people inherited one version of the FTO gene rather than another, they are 70 percent more likely to be obese. These people have 15 percent more body fat than those without the genetic make-up and weigh an average of 6.6 pounds more than those without it. "If you do have the FTO gene, it does put you at risk for becoming obese and having type 2 diabetes and extra body fat," Emily Rubin, R.D., weight loss dietitian at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Penn., told Ivanhoe.

HUNGER HORMONE: Leptin is a protein hormone involved in regulating energy intake and expenditure, including the decrease of appetite and increase of metabolism. Although leptin is a circulating signal that reduces appetite, in general, obese people have an unusually high circulating concentration of leptin. These people are said to be resistant to the effects of leptin, similar to the way people with diabetes are resistant to insulin. Obesity then develops when people take in more energy than they use over a prolonged period of time. For these obese people, this excess food intake is not driven by hunger signals. Rather, the excess intake is occurring in spite of the anti-appetite signals from leptin.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Leslie Capo
LSU Health Sciences Center
(504) 568-4809

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital

Source: http://www.wptv.com/content/health/mb/story.aspx?conten...

So it seems there are a lot of differing views and reasons fat people are fat. I'm sitting here looking at more then four of the heifers right now and I'm just at Starbucks. I think I've earned the right to be rude about this because in an effort to stay thin I have given up meat. I'm more then willing to have my lack of knowledge about what causes obesity exposed. At the same time I would like to point out that hunger is something thats not gonna kill anybody. Starvation is a different story but not hunger. It's all about defeating that urge that tells us to eat again even though we did 5 hours ago. This is not coming from some random Joe Shmoe. I've been forced to live off a poptart and some rice while fighting in a hostile fire zone. I know what hunger is and I know it's one more thing the mind can defeat Americans are weak were used to getting what we want when we want it. The mind can get used to one meal a day. Easily. If obesity is just an illness like any other then why is it so prevalent in America. I think were just a bunch of fat people that don't know when to say enough is enough. I know people that have an opportunity to eat healthy and have good food prepared for them daily, breakfast, lunch and dinner. They all continue to eat fast food everyday. I watch there bellies get bigger and bigger with disgust. Don't give these people a scape goat. What they need is some motivation to eat healthy or not at all. Ridicule I believe will get the best results. So I, now matter what others say, will continue to look at overweight people with disdain and disgust.

No one has self-control anymore.

If we had more self control,
we wouldn't use as much fuel to pollute the air,
or we'd save writing something down to save a tree.

That also goes for letting ourselves become overweight.

Great articles, Vierotchka! Obesity definitely has many causes, but the most common (as far as I know) is overeating and consumption of unhealthy/non-nutritious foods.

I am a strong believer in education and universal health care, but the US needs to put a lot more emphasis on social health. It needs to offer subsidies and other encouragements for fresh food markets to open in less affluent areas. It needs to educate its ciitzens on healthy eating. It needs to curb advertising of unhealthy items to children. It needs to curb the use of dangerous or otherwise unhealthy ingredients in food products like aspartame, bph-A, acesulfame K, high fructose corn syrup, etc.

There's just so much work to be done! For MOST people, though, who can afford to eat better but simply don't, it comes down to simple lack of will power. Eat an apple, not a donut. Skip dessert. Get outside. Walk to the store instead of driving. It all starts with the individual. You have to want to improve your own self or nothing will change. To see people whine and complain when they haven't made one effort at changing themselves...well, that's what aggravates me most.

balony, salami or whatever@#$$#%....its a health problem but singling out people with a social or health disorder is a waste of money as it pertains to global warming

Jokes on us when the food supply disappears, they'll survive longer. I got some fat to use, but not enough to be obese.

Excellent....

You hit the nail on the head.

People are ignorant, and selfish. If people would stop eating meat, and stop eating all dead animals and animal by-products, we could save our lives, animal's lives and the planet....

From Jack and Opal
THE ACCEPTABLE SIN