Direct link between cutting carbon emissions and obesity says scientist

Reducing carbon emissions will help fight obesity, said a leading scientist on Monday (6th December). Professor Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine says there is a direct link between carbon emissions and being clinically overweight.

"There is an almost linear relationship between carbon consumption and average [body mass index] BMI," Roberts said, in an interview with The Telegraph. He was also quoted as saying health benefits were another reason to combat greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, even if global warming turned out to be a myth.

The professor theorised that the use of cars, and other energy intensive machines, not only caused an increase in GHGs but also in the population's average weight, because people exercised less. The answer was for the world to go on a fossil fuel diet.

"The world needs to go on a fossil fuel-controlled diet even if climate change is a hoax – which I do not think it is – the world would still have to go on a fossil fuel controlled diet otherwise our healthy systems will just break down, we will not be able to deal with the growth in obesity," said Roberts.

It is not the first time Roberts has linked obesity to carbon emissions. Last year a hypothetical modelling study estimated how increased body mass might impact GHG emissions. The study, entitled Population adiposity and climate change, was coauthored by Phil Edwards and Professor Ian Roberts of the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

It speculated that the population's upward shift in BMI and food consumption habits contributed to global warming, especially as food production accounted for roughly 20 per cent of GHG emissions.

In the study, the authors compared two hypothetical populations, one with a population of one billion people with 3.5 per cent of the inhabitants as obese, which reflected the UK populace in the 1970's. The other were residents with 40 per cent of people obese, reflecting predictions for the UK in 2010.

After subsequent calculations of calorie intake per person, the authors calculated and compared the CO2 emissions from transport and food production in the two examples.

They found that the food energy requirements of the larger population was 19 per cent more, amounting to an extra 0.27 Gigaton produced per year, producing total GHG emissions of 1.67 Gigaton.

The research concluded that maintaining a healthy BMI has important environmental benefits in terms of reducing GHG emissions, something that Professor Roberts reiterated.

"The world is getting hotter and the world is getting fatter. Fundamentally fossil fuel energy is the cause of both," Roberts said. "The decarbonisation of the transport and greener lifestyles are going to be good for health as well as being good for the planet," he added.

Roberts will be among those hoping that the 16th Conference of Parties in Cancun, Mexico, can deliver an agreement on cutting GHG emissions before the talks end today (10th December).

Author: Leroy Robinson | Climate Action

Image: Tobyotter | Flickr