A Stretch Too Far

A team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is reporting that people who are obese are one of the driving forces behind global warming.

The team found that obese people require 1,680 daily calories to sustain normal energy and another 1,280 to maintain daily activities - a fifth more than normal.

The higher consumption of food has a two-fold effect, researchers said.

First of all the increasing demand for food, drives up production.

This means that agricultural processes are using more oil to meet demand, which contributes to the rising cost of fuel.

The cost of fuel is then passed on in the cost of food, making it more difficult for poorer areas to afford it.PricesWhat is more, the researchers said obese people are likely to rely on transport more and put more strain on that transport because of their mass, which again drives up prices and usage.

Ah! Such a welcome relief to know that obese people are a driving force behind the ills of the world.

I wonder if they forgot that obesity is more common among lower socio-economic groups, which means, following the same reasoning, that poor people are the cause of rising prices, food shortages, increasing transportation costs, and global warming.