Lose Weight and Save the Planet

According to a recent report in HealthDay News watching your weight does more than protect your health. It also may help fight climate change.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine say that because food production is a major contributor to greenhouse gases, a lean population, such as in Vietnam, consumes about 20 percent less food and produces fewer greenhouse gases than a population in which 40 percent of people are obese, a rate close to that of the United States.

Also, less energy is required to transport slim people, say the researchers, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts, of the school's Department of Epidemiology and Population Health.
They calculated that a lean population of a billion people would emit 1,000 million tons less transportation-related carbon dioxide equivalents a year than an obese population would emit.