The case against obesity

OK, everyone knows it's generally healthier to be thinner -- but more environmentally friendly, too?

Here's the argument by researchers today in Lancet, a British journal: overweight people require more fuel to transport them -- and more fuel to carry the relatively greater amounts of food that they eat. Thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, according to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine researchers, whose work was immediately disputed by others as unfair targeting.

The researchers calculate obese populations consume 18 percent more food on average.

The problem will get worse, they say, as the world's population swells. According to a Reuters article, about 400 million adults worldwide are obese, and the World Health Organization projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

"We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility," Reuters quoted researcher Phil Edwards as saying. "Obesity is a key part of the big picture."

(Update: Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, cautioned that the data are interesting, but how they are framed will make a big difference.

"Saying that obese people are contributing to climate change is highly stigmatizing and assigns blame to the individuals who are obese rather than the conditions driving the obesity in the first place," Brownell said in a statement.

As an example, he notes, "Children are overwhelmed by food marketing for nutrient-poor, calorie-dense foods, have junk foods marketed to them in schools, have physical education subtracted from their curriculum, and are exposed to record portion sizes. Should we be pointing the finger at obese children and their families, or focusing on the conditions creating the problem? Which of these two approaches is likely to lead down a more productive road?")

US residents are among the world's heaviest, on average. Nearly one-third of adults in the United States are obese and nearly two-thirds overweight, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases reported in May 2007. Here's more. A report out earlier this week offered no improvement in teen obesity levels in Massachusetts over the past six years, despite many efforts.

Readers, do you buy the researchers' argument, or do you think they're scapegoating? We invite your thoughts below.

Meantime, here's quick suggestions to two different aspects of the issue. The first is a step-by-step look at creating an urban vegetable garden, to kick off your own DIY low-carbon diet. The second is 10 ways to eat healthy foods if you're stuck during weekdays, like we are, in an office filled with high-fat, fast-food temptations. Let us know if you have other ideas.