We've explored obesity in many different forms during the course of this year and if you're a regular Handpicked reader (enter your email in the box on the left and click on 'subscribe' to become one if you're not already), you'll by now be well aware of a recurring theme in our nutrition posts. Energy. This thread will doubtless also run through the imminent new CABI product Environmental Impact (plug, plug), where I hope the loose ends help the experts tie the information in nice, concise and user-friendly packages as opposed to a confused mess of knots.
Obesity is where I expect Nutrition and Food Sciences and Environmental Impact will overlap quite often. Their common issues of energy - supply, demand, usage and wastage - were recently brought to my attention again in a paper published in Ecological Economics, after it had been loaded onto CAB Abstracts. Authors Axel Michaelowa and Björn Dransfield, are economists as far as I can tell from their very wordy company website (unless you're actually looking for a 'solution' to your 'specific greenhouse gas market requirement', I wouldn't bother looking it up). They point out that obesity 'increases greenhouse gas emissions through higher fuel needs for transportation of heavier people, lifecycle emissions from additional food production and methane emissions from higher amounts of organic waste.' They report that CO2 emissions due to the manufacture of obesity promoting foodstuffs increased by some 400 million tonnes in the years in 'advanced developing countries' between 1990 and 2005.' 1% of this energy could be saved by reducing the food waste associated with producing (and eating) all this food. Michaelowa and Dransfield also calculate that a 5 kg reduction in the average weight of the population could cut the CO2 emissions generated by driving around by more than 10 million tonnes - just a fraction of the amount emitted in creating the problem in the first place. It seems that making the food that makes people fat is the problem.
I used to wonder whether further rises in the price of oil will be sufficient to force people out of their cars in numbers that a concern for the environment has failed to achieve. In that context, maybe increasing the price of energy intensive, energy dense processed foods, either by economics (that price of oil again) or politics (via taxation) would force people towards the locally produced and healthier options. This option seems to be a hot topic of debate among the agricultural economists right now, as new Handpicked...addition, Janice, reported on Monday (EAAE Conference, September 8th). I think it's more complex than that. To say that high levels of obesity mean higher energy usage in bringing obese people and fatty foods together in a supermarket environment may be stating the obvious. To factor in behavioural factors like thinking (Intellectual activity blamed for obesity September 8th) biological factors (Wage war on obesity - not the obese, July 1st) requires us to cast the net an awful lot wider than a single discipline. Ecologists, nutritionists, psychologists, food scientists, economists (to name but a few) and policymakers are all discussing climate change and what to do about it, but crucially, they aren't often discussing it with each other.
Maybe CABI's imminent Environmental Impact product will help succeed in one element of solving some of the problems - bringing together the information generated in the measuring and modelling of climate change from all the disciplines involved.
Obviously, I think your right
Natural ways are the best to cure obesity and heavy weight. Actually health food is a complete science as I have noticed in few of my own patients as well natural food really works if taken in proper quantity and proper way.
There is whole different way of cooking it and that just works perfect. Better than many medical sciences I would say.
Physiotherapist
Posted by: Summit | January 04, 2009 at 06:32 PM