Fathead

Obesity is a serious problem. But if extreme drug resistant TB spreads beyond Africa and Lativia, it may soon get the attention of the public.
Those with HIV in Africa could be decimated. It killed 52 out of 53 patients with HIV in South Africa, and the 53rd patient is in critical condition.

Well, if you were to look at likely causes of premature death worldwide for the next few years, obesity is likely to be at (or near) the top of the list. Sure it's preventable by behavior change (so is HIV), but that doesn't mean it is not a huge looming problem needing serious attention.

Obesity described as a "big, looming problem" has to bring a grin. However, I think there is a connection between obesity and global warming, and that is overconsumption. Americans in particular: we buy more than we need of virtually everything, consuming the planet's resources and polluting its air and water due to our gluttony. As a people (not all of us, but too many) we work less and eat more than any four people from developing countries...and then we spend vast quantities of the nations money in medical care to overcome the effects of our self indulgent lifestyles...money that could be used to solve so many other problems at home and in the world. How did we come to this? To be a little kinder and gentler about it, I think that some of it is stress related, that in reaction to the stress of our lifestyles we not only eat more but our body packs on the fat and stores it....the chemistry of stress telling it bad times they are a comin'. But part of our stress is again the result of self indulgent life styles that have us up to our ears in debt buying all kinds of things we don't need with money we don't have and at prices we can't afford...on credit.

We as a country have brought this on ourselves. Our jobs provide us with precious little exercise outside of walking from our cars to our offices in the morning, after which we sit on our butts all day long, walk back to our cars and go home to dinner before plopping down on the couch to watch tv. Toss in a fat-laden fast-food burger for lunch, oversized portions of food for dinner, sprinkle on some major stress and bingo: obesity problems. I know, I used to do office work and was lucky to put in a little gardening time on the weekend. Now I work outside doing physical labor 7 days a week and I'm in better shape than most people I know who are 10 years younger than me. (Happier and less stressed, too.) "Manual labor" seems to be a dirty word in this country; it's a shame we've come to the point where the fruits of physical labor are held in lower esteem than "thinking jobs" and choosing the easiest, least strenuous method (like using a riding mower vs a push-mower) is considered an intelligent decision. I'm certain my neighbor laughs at me, struggling to push my little mower across the field, as she settles her 300lb bulk into the seat of her big John Deer riding mower.

One might argue that the two threats are outcomes of the same cause, so comparing their amplitude (on what scale?) isn't that useful, particularly if one is focussed on taking action wrt the root cause. (see mary above as well, cougar..)

Burning fossil fuels and using petro-chemical fertiliser has made the developed world people lazy and fat, and caused global warming.

I suppose what is meant in the article is that one can calculate, in a static world, the 'economic' costs (medical) of obesity but global warming, is just err, too global and nebulous, and lives don't have a 'cost'.

That is pretty much what economists always do. They drive me bananas. /ends rant before it gets out of hand./

A contributing factor, tied to a cornucopist mentality, is the adoption of individual life styles and loss of community. We don't just sit in front of screens and eat hamburgers because we can, we do it because that is what 'free market' mentality tells us is fun and good and permits the 'economy' to grow. That growth is sitting on our hips and bellies.

I see three central forces shaping a future where fat is the natural state, and those who can afford it will dominate the minority with the luxury of being svelte:

1) The natural evolutionary path of "civilization" leads us inexorably this way, and will continue barring some unforeseen catastrophe or a determined/conscious choice to change tack. From hunter/gatherers to subsistence farmers to blue collar industrial workers to desk jockeys in the information age/knowledge economy, each step naturally becomes more sedentary as we develop ever more efficient technology for doing work.

2) It doesn't help that our economies are no longer based on simple supply & demand, but on consumerism and the perceived need to continuously create artificial demand just to keep from rolling back downhill. So from infancy, at every turn we're constantly urged to consume, consume, consume, keeping the engines rolling to preserve "prosperity".

3) Principles of freedom and individualism that we hold as fundamental encourage discrepancies between haves & have-nots, so we'll always have overfed & underfed. But thanks to #1 & 2 above, the "underfed" are paradoxically becoming the obese ones, dependent on fake, filling, junk food, while only the privileged can afford "premium" organics & natural foods, ski passes, club memberships & the occasional nip/tuck.

In many traditional and poor societies having bulk was considered positive, a mark of richness, -survival!- and therefore a badge of power and status.

Paleolithic Venuses were globular, Buddha was extravagantly corpulent, or was represented as such, and even the late Ruben's ladies were beyond chubby.

With plentiful food available, the upper classes abandoned fatness, as there was no need for it any longer. Slimness and tallness became marks of domination, as they signalled a detachment from the previous condition of veering between some temporary plenty to scarcity. The tallness itself was an outcome of better nutrition.

These social phenomena were encouraged by health considerations and the peculiar power held by those who practise ascetisim of some kind (concentrate on other values and succeed) and so never get fat. So today some video stars are drunken skeletons and some teenage girls face death to attain popularity (anorexia) and overweight people are discriminated against in astonishing ways, e.g. in the workplace.

People in Ethipopia are still slim, they just don't have the food to become fat. Where it is available, such as in Guatemala, obesity hits hard.

Name,
I truly admire what you said in your post. Very humbly, if you do not mind, I would like to add to what you have said so well.
Multinational corporations sell junk food and make tremendous profits. They use media control to sell breakfast cearals full of sugar to children. They sell grease, sugar,and coca-cola with benzene, to produce cancer. And their profits increase. And the verdict of the Market is: good.
And now in an interview with the BBC,, a well known and highly respected environmental scientist, John Holden, said climate change is changing much more rapidly than that which was supposed in the past. He says we are experiencing a dangerous change right now, which requires drastic measures to stop it. The ice in Greenland is melting preciptiously.
The ocean level in this century may rise 4 meters, inundating many cities in the world.
We have a chioice. We can passively accept world domination by multinational corporations, and allow these corporations to kill all life on the planet, or we can organize and resist.
We may already be at the point of no return in relation to climate change. If so, it is already too late.
I would say that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico is showing the way, in exactly the same way that Martin Luther King and Ghandi showed the way. All these men advocate non-violent resistance. Ghandi forced the British Empire to leave India. Martin Luther King brought social justice. Andres Obrador is resisting the imposition, through voter fraud, of Felipe Calderon of the PAN, to be named president of Mexico. Obrador, and the PRD are resisting non-violently.
Even though the multi-national corporations will probably win the struggle, is it not better to at least try to stop
these corporations from killing us before it is too late?
I know you will say Martin Luther King and Andres Calderon have many faults. But so what? Don't we all have faults?

I believe that fat is an evolutionary adaption. In past times, humans were similar to wolves that can go for long periods of time between meals or in the case of wolves feasts. Humans at the same stage in history also would be forced to fast at times in a similar way.

Therefore, those that metabolized fat more efficiently had a better chance at survival over those thin high-metabolizers that 'might' look good but wouldn't last very long.

Humans today may not have to go for long periods (winter) without adequate food but internal fat still has many advantages from cushioning organs from traumatic injury to providing a nutritional source during times of illness or starvation and there are still many parts of the world in periodic drought conditions.

So think of that spare tire as a bank deposit (or insurance) to be cashed in on a rainy day. I believe that its effect on overall health is grossly over stated.

William; well said. I have been trying to get a campaign off the ground which would be a very simple way to resist the rampant consumerism spurred by multinationals, which anyone can do with little or no effort, and which would be extremely effective.

STOP BUYING ON CREDIT. Most of us really can't afford all those things we keep finding ourselves compelled by social pressures to buy. But credit makes it seem like we can, and so we do. The gross overconsumption of goods this allows is reflected in the gross overproduction of goods by the multinational corps, which is in turn the cause of much of the environmental degradation we are experiencing. If we buy things for only the cash we have on hand, we will buy mainly what we need rather than what we are told we "want". And we will pay alot less for them in the long run because we are not paying interest on these items. This means Americans will have more spendable income in the long run, which will help reverse any temporary economic slowdown. The interest we pay on these credit purchases goes straight into the pockets of multinational banks, who use it to fund wars of empire as well as the environmentally destructive "development" projects in other countries...seldom (if ever) to the benefit of the majority of people living there. So, my little bandwagon says 1. Buy nothing more on credit ever again, and 2. Pay off all credit debts that you currently have as quickly as possible so that you pay the least amount of interest payments on them.

It also helps to bank locally (in small hometown banks or credit unions) and buy locally, rather than at huge chain department stores.

Tom: a spare tire is one thing, but when you see someone carrying the entire truck, that can't be good.

I would take issue that once again its the US that its own people blame for the ills of the world. Folks anyone that wants a picture of where the pollution is coming from can have it for the asking. Ever been to Germany? Those are some seriously fat greasly bears. Same in Thailand. Oh, losing a few doesnt hurt anyone. But suggesting that we pull petro-fertilizer out of the operations of this world would cause a famine in under thirty days. Our entire food supply chain under normal use is about 40 days give or take. We simply wouldnt be able to feed ourselves. Global warming is also global water expansion. You heat it by a degree and it expands. No one William can say how much it will expand but it will also cause heating as well as beaches now become the shallows.

M in H. You might be 100% right but even if we eat more than any four people we have the right to do so here. Tom DVM would be likely the first to say that the larger species in most any food chain wins the lions share. So you have to take that into account as well. But your assumption of gluttony is an opinon, not a fact. I personally have dropped 70 pounds with another 10 to go for my age and height. That has been upped every three years for the last 20. Why I have no idea but I think that 155 at age 51 would have put me onto the wagon for the hospital 10 years ago. Now I am at 190 and someone's opinion says I should weigh 180. Thats a weight I'll buy into.

But I sure wouldnt blame fat on success and stress. It just tastes too damned good.

All the "fat and lazy" comments already posted point to at least one reason why The Powers That Be want obesity to be perceived as a threat as dangerous as bird flu or global warming: If I'm fat, it's MY fault. Oh, sure, the more generous among you will talk about 'the corporate encouragement of overconsumption' or 'poor diet as a result of stress', but in the end, every fat person knows that we have personally failed to stay within the insurance industry's standards. On the other hand, if a bird flu pandemic ravages the economy -- or if global warming destroys it -- then TPTB are going to come up for some serious questioning. Can American society, can the modern multinational corporation, do anything (i.e., spend any money) to try and prevent widespread suffering and death when H5N1, or carbon emissions, threaten the whole ecosystem? Reply: Look! Over there! Unsightly fat people slopping over the sides of the (undersized) airline seat! Go pick on the fat people, and leave fine diet-watching, hard-exercising specimens like George W. Bush to bike and cut brush!

To compare threats, we need a measure. I propose person days lost to the threat. Quality of life should also be included, although it makes it harder to quantify.

So lets calculate the person years lost to a hypothetically highly infectious strain of H5N1. Suppose it kills 10% of the world population with a median age of 30. So that is 6 billion * 10% * (80-30) = 30 billion person years of life lost.

What about Obesity? Obesity is known to shorten life, and being obese degrades the life experience. Suppose 30% of the population is obese, and it degrades life linearly from onset at (say) age 30 to an early death at (say) 70. The person years lost are 6 billion * (80-70) years * 30% + 6 billion * (70-30)/2 * 30% = 18 billion + 36 billion = 54 billion person years.

What about global warming? There are a lot of imponderables, but personally I can't see it producing mass fatalities. They might be a billion refugees, but most could move elsewhere within their own nation. A few degrees warmer shouldn't be fatal, food (maybe GM) will still be available, a more energetic weather system might kill a few million in cyclones etc, but in comparison to AIDS (say 50 million people losing 40 years of life = 2 billion person years) or Obesity or H5N1 or even tobacco it is insignificant.

Perhaps the real agenda here is unavoidable risk on a personal level?

Mary in Hawaii wrote: "However, I think there is a connection between obesity and global warming, and that is overconsumption."

Mary, You have it just right. There is absolutely a correlation between obesity and global warming. I was just explaining this to my kids yesterday. Buying less stuff = less manufacturing = less pollution.

As for Americans blaming its own for the ills of the world, there's a reason for that when corporations such as Yum!, which owns franchises such as KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, have plans to open 500--yes 500--new stores in China and India in the next year alone. That type of infrastructure requires a vast quantity of natural resources to build and maintain and will eventually lead to the same health problems (obesity, diabetes, heart disease) as we now "enjoy" here in the US. It makes me sick.

I am not disputing that obesity is a problem, although how much of a problem can be debated. However comparing it to bird flu and global warming is really nonsensical. In fact cmparing bird flu to global warming doesn't make much sense, even though they may be related in that changes in climate may affect the disease. The interventions for all three are different but what makes global warming stand out is that it is not transitory like either obesity or bird flu. Bird flu, if it happens will run its course. Obesity can be engaged in a variety of ways. But global warming is, on the time scale of most people, irreversible and will set in motion forces that cannot be diverted. By the time we have done the damage we will be living it out for many generations. Comparing billions of reugees to even a billion deaths doesn't seem to me comparable. Global warming is in a class by itself, and although we don't talk about it much here, in our estimation is a bigger threat to the human (and many other) species than either bird flu or obesity.

The rhetorical link to bird flu was "pandemic" and it is just that, rhetoric, designed (successfully in this case) to bring attention to a particular issue. But it does it in a way that distorts perspectives, which is why I object to it.

revere:

I have to concur that the obesity "pandemic" link to avian flu was stretching it a bit far. But, I do have to admit, it seems obesity is becoming a pandemic problem.

I've read the posts proudly expounding the benefits of prominent poundage. And shaken my head.

If you have never attempted to administer an anesthetic to a morbidly obese patient, you have not yet experienced the ultimate in sphincter toning(!)

As our population has increased in girth and weight, our healthcare system has had to adapt by purchasing larger support equipment: larger blood pressure cuffs, stretchers, OR tables, etc. It takes longer needles to reach muscle vs. subcutaneous tissue.

It takes more medication to anesthetize an overweight/obese patient, and often takes longer for them to emerge from that anesthetic. Instrumentation of an overweight/obese patient's airway can be a nightmare. Just as there is redundant tissue around the waist, there is often redundant tissue in the pharynx, making intubation a challenge. And I pity the EMS workers who have to address these situations in a person's home or at the scene of an accident.

I've read where 2/3rds of our population in North America is overweight. 1/3 of that number are obese. Add an aging population to that number and it makes for some interesting medical scenarios.

We "joke" at work that this epidemic of weight will make some orthopedic surgeons VERY wealthy in the coming years. All those extra pounds are quite hard on the old joints and back.

And now, the kids are following in step.

Who knows...maybe all this poundage has a purpose...perhaps those with extra calories to burn may do better in a true pandemic...

One of the real scandals is in the US is that a part of US agri. surplus - the junkier part, leftovers such as pork fat, sugary syrups, processed cheese, etc. - are sold to communities to make school lunches. Those in charge buy simply because it is cheapest, or all they can afford, though many schools (state, district, individual..?) have taken measures to do better. There is a small literature on this topic. As it is not my field, google will have to provide.

Proximate causes for children - lack of physical activity, snacking in front of TV, etc. etc. - are relatively easy to identify.

Going a little deeper is not difficult either, one may invoke societal changes, car use, parent paranoia (they won't let their children out to run in the park, middle class thing), the fattening and non nutritious food that they eat, hyped and advertised by the corps.; candy, Kellogs, chips, sweet sodas, pre made foods; the lack of parental authority or supervision, either thru ignorance, neglect, or poverty; and so on. These change over time and culture.

Right now in Switz. the scandal is that gym hours at school have been dropped. The latest scientific opinion is that diets make you fatter in the long run.

(Switz. is not an active agri. exporter, with the exception of some specific goods, such as chocolate; but it is hosts many Global companies who are movers and shakers.)

Deeper yet, the upper class - the 1% who owns about 25 % of Americas 'wealth', and the next 5% who own another big chunk, and any middle class person who has shares, stocks, a pension fund worthy of its name are those who count on their investment being returned, growth continuing.

That means agri. / food / flavor/ cheap restaurant/ food manufacture / etc. corps. have to sell their goods. The nefarious cheap goods are sold with hard hitting advertisement and control of stores, to children, or parents who buy for them. The aim is to sell more each year.

The profit skimmed off - say 3 - 7 % growth, or shares that perform well, or whatever - goes straight into the pocket of middle class professionals in the developed world, like myself.

But suggesting that we pull petro-fertilizer out of the operations of this world would cause a famine in under thirty days.

No one suggested that, afaik, but that is correct, somewhere between 20 and 60 days.

In America, anything worth doing is worth OVER doing. That's why we have 5,000 sq. ft homes, super sized meals and Hummers. Having said that, I don't believe the house builders, food producers or car makers are primarily at fault. We choose to over do it.
I don't buy the argument that poor people are victimized by junk food. In my supermarket, bananas, apples, watermelons and oatmeal all sell for less than $1/pound. Most vegetables I see sell for less than $2/pound. Compare that to potato chips, salami and cookies. I would argue that eating healthy is not more expensive than eating junk.
Let's look in the mirror and admit that in a consumer society we have choices; our choice to over eat and to eat garbage is just that--a choice!
If given the choice to lose 30 pounds or have Medicare pick-up the tab for a knee replacement, what do you think most of your baby boomer patients would do?

...back to Revere's main point--that next to global warming all these other current threats pale--I entirely agree. Yet another gloomy report out today, I see, this one confirming that current CO2 levels are way over anything seen in history going back 800,000 years--150,000 years further back than any previous ice core analyses. Even more worrying: although average global temperatures have varied through ice ages etc, nothing in almost the last million years came even remotely close to the current RATES of change!!

Here in BC, we're watching our salmon on the edge, forests larger than Great Britain devoured by an invading beetle, farms and ranchers threatened by drought and our communities increasingly besieged by forest fires and floods--all directly related to global warming and all happening right now. And these are just the first warning signs...