Obesity and Global Warming: One Man’s Personal View.
Okay, so enough with what the scientists are saying about ‘obesity and global warming’. I want to hear what the man on the street blogosphere has to say about it all.
Luckily, I’ve found just the man.
Israel over at Fatman Unleashed was ahead of the game on this one. He weighed in on the subject last month with this post ‘Fat People Cause Global Warming: Fat Isn’t Very Green.’
Lately, we have noticed an increasing push for “going green.” We have seen changes in everything from transportation to food preparation to the internet. This got me thinking about how I could make my life greener. My immediate realization was that I was a walking global warming vessel. I’m fat. Being fat can’t be very green. Can it? We need to reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases and learn how to use energy more efficiently.
Think about it. I’m overweight and require an above average usage of certain environmentally non-friendly things. Like what, you ask? Well, how about showering…? Being fat makes me take longer in the shower, using up more water than I should be using. So I waste water even though I make a conscious effort to “speed up” my showers. Another waste is toilet usage. I take, um, pretty big dumps and need more than one flush. I also use a lot of wipes to clean up. Don’t even get me started on my frequent urination due to all the water and green tea I consume. That equals quite a large amount of flushing per day.
Another way that being fat, or unhealthy, isn’t green is all the crap that gets consumed. I try to be as healthy as possible, but I do have my weaknesses. There are folks that eat out day after day after day. What do you think this does to the environment? That extra bag that was used to pack those 3 double cheeseburgers doesn’t just evaporate into thin air ya know. And the process of creating those burger wrappers doesn’t help either, factories and plants are needed for the creation of all of this.
How else can being fat not be very green? Clothes! Have you seen the amount of fabric needed to create some of the clothes that overweight people wear? I know you have. It’s all over television with the “I lost X amount of pounds” commercials. Think of what it takes to make that 5XL t-shirt. Think. What about all the washing that is needed for those large clothes? The water, the detergent, the softener, the dryer time…talk about endless loads of clothes.
If you’re fat you’re probably a notorious waster of electricity and gas too. It can be either watching too much television, having the air conditioning on a lot, or driving to that nearest fast food joint to pick up a “snack.” The heavier you are the more gas your car needs to carry you around. Fat = heavy = more gas needed. It’s simple math.
I’m not saying that being fat is causing global warming (need some research and scientific proof for this), but I can assure you that being fat isn’t very environmentally friendly.
(originally posted at Fatman Unleashed. Re-posted on Healthbolt with permission.)
Wow! Thanks Israel for sharing.
Anyone else want to weigh in?
We can provide the forum - you provide the words.
Meanwhile, I’m not done with this topic. Next week I move on to ‘The Skinny on Global Warming’.
Tags: environment, fat, food consumption, fossil fuel consumption, global warming, Green, Obesity, obesity and global warming, overweightRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Diet, Exercise, Exposed!, Extreme, Green, Health, Misc., Nutrition, Obesity, Your Body
5 opinions for Obesity and Global Warming: One Man’s Personal View.
Israel
May 20, 2008 at 10:37 am
Healthy and non-fat folks also contribute to global warming, I just happened to write about my own personal fatness.
Liz
May 21, 2008 at 4:24 am
Hi Israel, thanks for sharing your personal opinion. And you are so right, everyone contributes to global warming…
Adrienne
May 21, 2008 at 9:05 am
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-10-25-gasoline-obesity_x.htm
We are burning 1 billion more gallons of gas a year than we were in 1960 due to expanding waistlines.
If someone argues that skinny people need more heating.. well… fat people require more air conditioning. The skinny person can put on more clothes to stay warm and the fat person can’t take off clothes to stay warm (at work, in public, etc..) or at least they shouldn’t. I also think AC is more of an energy drain. Notice we get brown outs on hot days in the summer and not on cold days in the winter?
Adrienne
May 21, 2008 at 9:36 am
CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline = 2,421 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 8,788 grams = 8.8 kg/gallon = 19.4 pounds/gallon.
Which means if obesity is causing 1 billion more gallons of gas per year to be used than normally would, that there is an additional 19,400,000,000 pounds of CO2 emissions than there normally would be.
Global warming doesn’t create hurricanes, but it does make them stronger and more dangerous. Because the ocean is getting warmer, tropical storms can pick up more energy and become more powerful. So global warming could turn, say, a category 3 storm into a much more dangerous category 4 storm. In fact, scientists have found that the destructive potential of hurricanes has greatly increased along with ocean temperature over the past 35 years.
Hmmm.. have we seen an increase in destruction like this lately?
The United States. Though Americans make up just 4 percent of the world’s population, we produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning.
See any correlation here:
Obesity (most recent) by country
Rank Countries Amount
#1 United States: 30.6%
#2 Mexico: 24.2%
#3 United Kingdom: 23%
#4 Slovakia: 22.4%
#5 Greece: 21.9%
#6 Australia: 21.7%
#7 New Zealand: 20.9%
#8 Hungary: 18.8%
#9 Luxembourg: 18.4%
#10 Czech Republic: 14.8%
Liz
May 22, 2008 at 4:15 am
Hi Adrienne, looks like you’ve been doing some serious reading about global warming…thanks for the link… and where did you get the stats from? find it amazing that New Zealand is so high — after all, it’s promoted as 100% pure - yeah right…and with a population of only 4 million…means we are using way over our share.
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