If you need another reason to go to the gymn

[Corny]

.. save the environment ..

Abstract:

Background: The increasing global prevalence of overweight and obesity has serious implications for the environment, as well as for health. We estimate the impact on greenhouse gas emissions of increases in the population distribution of body mass index (BMI).
​

Methods: We estimated the food energy required to maintain basal metabolic rate in two hypothetical adult populations using the Schofield equations for males and females. Additional greenhouse gas emissions due to higher fuel energy use for transporting a heavier population were estimated.
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Results: Compared with a normal population distribution of BMI, a population with 40% obese requires 19% more food energy for its total energy expenditure. Greenhouse gas emissions from food production and car travel due to increases in adiposity in a population of 1 billion are estimated to be between 0.4 Giga tonnes (GT) and 1.0 GT of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.
​

Conclusions: The maintenance of a healthy BMI has important environmental benefits in terms of lower greenhouse gas emissions.​

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Full paper at oxford journals:
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/dyp172v1

 

[jackoroe]

Surely we'll need a tax on fat people!

 

[Corny]

Surely we'll need a tax on fat people!

Do you guys pay extra tax on liquor and cigarettes in the states?
Maybe we will soon get an extra fat-tax for food Suddenly even the fastfood chains will cut down the fat

 

[Fire]

Maybe we will soon get an extra fat-tax for food Suddenly even the fastfood chains will cut down the fat

Need to tax the sugar, not the fat--that's what's doing most of the real damage.

 

[Fire]

The damned corn agribusiness has us over a cob.

I meant "sugar" in the broadest sense, but you're quite right, of course. Agribusiness has been using the nation's kids as garbage disposals for decades, and that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their sins.

But hey, anything to make a buck

 

[LukiusCurtiss]

I heard this awhile ago, but wasn't the Japanese Government trying to implement a fat tax in Japan. Something about measuring waist lines of men and women and charging based on that.

 

[Corny]

this sounds like an urban legend

 

[LukiusCurtiss]

I thought it was pretty ridiculous too.I read it somewhere in a newspaper or maybe one of those yahoo news articles, but here is a link to an article about it:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/printer/23283.html