A few months ago I was in the gym near to my former workplace discussing articles with a friend. Glancing around he suggested that I do “The Problem With…Obesity”, so I thought about it for a bit. It became clear that there was indeed an environmental aspect to the increasing average weight of people, not just in western industrial society, but also in societies hitherto healthy and to which excess weight would be seen as a disease. The reason for this latter phenomenon : the high-fat, high-sugar, addictive Western diet creeping into Oriental lifestyles.
The nature of the environmental aspect was not cut-and-dried – there were major issues with the size of vehicles increasing to accommodate larger backsides, the same with aircraft having to make seats larger and, of course, the increased consumption of environmentally damaging rich foods, and the flipside lack of exercise that comes from increased motorised vehicle travel.
But then we simultaneously agreed that overweight, and particularly obese, people die younger. The figures are not clear, and they relate not just to the extra strain on the body, and the increased likelihood of a variety of preventable diseases (expecially Type 2 Diabetes), but also the related unhealthy lifestyle that overweight people tend to lead. Compare this with numerous studies on vegetarians who are shown to have an overall lower incidence of most cancers, but which could be partly related to the extra care that most vegetarians tend to take over their lives in general.
What this all comes down to is that although overweight people may have more environmentally damaging lives, in the long run this may be cancelled out by their decreased lifespan.
I find this extremely sad.
Having just returned from a holiday which included its share of ice cream and other treats, but also a great deal of walking, swimming and carrying great loads of luggage from one place to another, I was struck by the increase in just one year of the number of overweight children. Children who seemed to be throughly enjoying the outside, but whose lives would otherwise be spent ensconced in a sitting room staring at a computer or TV, eating high-fat, high-sugar foods, and whose parents don’t seem to care (and by the look of most of them, even about their own health) that their children are being set up for a more difficult and shorter life.
And in the vast majority of cases there is absolutely no excuse for it. As the father of two young girls, I know how easy, enjoyable, and cheap, it is to give my children healthy lives. I also know that I can hold up a mirror to the way most humans treat themselves, and their children, and see it reflecting the way they treat the planet – do they really care so little?
Keith Farnish
www.theearthblog.org
www.reduce3.com
And proud member of The Sietch
Interesting questions Keith, we can simplify the calculations and take some conservative assumptions to see if shorter life spans are indeed offsetting an energy intensive lifestyle.
Assumptions:
Compare males only, both 5’10” with one the healthy ideal weight of 160lbs and one obese (BMI 31) at 215lbs, with the healthy male living the average lifespan of approx. 78 years, and an overweight male who smokes or has smoked living 70 years based on the average number of this report: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2003/01/07/obesity030107.html
Both individuals drive similar cars throughout their lives of average size and base efficiency. We’ll use a 6 cyl Chevrolet Malibu with a combined MPG of 23.
If the healthy males only difference were the effect on fuel efficiency used during his adult life (say from 20 onwards) we can calculate based on an average rule of thumb that 100lbs = 1 MPG that the healthy male driving an average of 16,550 miles per year (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm) at 23 MPG will consume 720 gallons a year for 58 years or 41760 gallons. The overweight male getting 22.45MPG will consume 737 gallons per year for 50 years or 36850 gallons. A net savings of 4910 gallons of fuel for the obese man.
In simplified terms of food, to maintain 215 lbs of weight you need 2100kcal per day, 1760 for 160lbs, this equats to 38.325^6kcal for the obese man and 37.26^6kcal for a net savings of 1.065^6kcal for the healthy male.
So what is the larger impact? ~5000 gallons of fuel or ~1,000,000kcal? I’m not sure, and these calculations of course only show the two most obvious differences and are IMO conservative estimates. I suspect that the difference in life expectancy would not cover the myriad of other differences between healthy and obese lifestyles, but I also think that the difference between lifestyles of wealthy and modest incomes is a larger and more important issue!
Another great article Keith!
Thanks Greenspree. It’s very easy to get lost in calculations – I frequently do – but you are surely right about rich vs poor being more important from an environmental POV.
Keith