Excess weight is apparently accelerating climate change

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This is not an exaggerated media release of climate stickers, but a study published by the Obesity Society in its specialist journal “Obesity.” The scientific association that studies obesity and its treatment wants to show that in addition to global population growth, increasing weight also causes an increase in CO₂. This is because of the average metabolic rate, which is largely dependent on a person’s body weight.

The U.S. Agricultural Research and Economics Council reportedly says that overweight people “throw away” about 140.7 gigatons of food each year.

This is called metabolic waste, that is, food consumed even though caloric needs have been met. The production of these non-essential foods alone causes about 240 million tons of CO₂ emissions.

Increased traffic load

Overweight people are blamed for a total of around 700 megatons of unnecessary CO₂ emissions. This corresponds to about 1.6 percent of all human emissions. For the study, people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher are considered overweight.

The causes of excessive CO₂ emissions are not only increased food consumption and metabolism, but also increased fuel consumption for transportation. Obesity causes an increase in fossil fuel consumption. Accordingly, curvier people emit about one-fifth more greenhouse gases in traffic than normal-weight people.

According to the researchers, obesity treatment helps not only those affected but also society as a whole: “Obesity not only affects the health of affected individuals, but untreated obesity can also contribute to environmental problems.” (cut)

Source : Blick