ABSTRACT
Evidence for an unexpected relationship Obesity and climate change are both crucial issues of global concern. At first glance it may seem odd to link them together and to suggest that obesity is contributing to climate change. Can what we choose to eat really have an impact on global warming? Around 33 per cent of the world’s adult population (1.3 billion people) is now obese or overweight (Kelly et al, 2008). In addition, carbon emissions are high and have increased from 250ppm (50 years ago) to 380ppm in 2007 (Egger, 2008). Some have suggested that it is no coincidence that countries with higher obesity rates tend to have higher carbon emissions, such as the US. Recent contributions to mainstream scholarly journals, such as The Lancet, British Medical Journal, New Scientist and Obesity Reviews, all highlight the interrelation between obesity and climate change, emphasizing how their causes and policy solutions are linked, putting the issue on the public agenda. The UK government commissioned the ‘Foresight report’ (Department of Health, 2007) with a view to answer the question of how a sustainable response to obesity could be delivered, and Alan Johnson, the UK Secretary of State for Health, warned that the obesity crisis is as serious as climate change for Britons. To support the UK government’s ambition to be the first major country to reverse the growing tide of obesity, a strategy document followed in 2008 Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: A Crossgovernment Strategy for England. This document, as well as the Foresight report, make clear links between both the causes and the solutions to both obesity and climate change, stating that the ‘causes of excess weight are similar to climate change in their complexity’ (Department of Health, 2008). The financial impact of obesity and overweight is now starting to
be felt and the cost to the UK economy alone is an estimated £10 billion a year, which is projected to increase fivefold in the next 40 years due to escalating obesity rates (female obesity has almost tripled and male obesity quadrupled in the last quarter of a century). Many of the costs from increasing obesity worldwide will be carbon intensive, such as increased reliance on medical services and use of drugs for ‘treating’ obesity, as well as managing its health consequences: cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers, to name a few.
