Obesity and Climate Change: Framing is Everything

by Carly Keidel

In a letter that will be published in the next issue of the medical journal the Lancet, British researchers Dr. Phil Edwards and Dr. Ian Roberts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine suggest that obese people are significantly contributing to world oil demands and global food insecurity. Their letter states that obese persons use 18 percent more food energy than thinner persons, which in turn leads to a greater global demand for food.

“These data are interesting, but how they are framed will make a big difference,” states Dr. Kelly Brownell, Director of the Rudd Center. “Saying that obese people are contributing to climate change is highly stigmatizing and assigns blame to the individuals who are obese rather than the conditions driving the obesity in the first place.”

As an example, Dr. Brownell notes, “Children are overwhelmed by food marketing for nutrient-poor, calorie dense foods, have junk foods marketed to them in schools, have physical education subtracted from their curriculum, and are exposed to record portion sizes. Should we be pointing the finger at obese children and their families, or focusing on the conditions creating the problem? Which of these two approaches is likely to lead down a more productive road?”

The Lancet letter raises interesting questions about the connections between our toxic food culture and the environment. But suggesting that obese or overweight people are a burden on the environment may only fuel existing, widespread stigma. Dr. Brownell concludes, “The social issue of obesity should be the focus, not the inferred personal failings of obese people.”

For media or press inquiries:

• Kelly D. Brownell, PhD, Director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. Email: kelly.brownell@yale.edu, phone: 203-988-6303.
• Rebecca M. Puhl, PhD, Director of Research and Anti-Stigma Initiatives for the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. Email: rebecca.puhl@yale.edu, phone: 203-432-7354.

Comments

[Mara]

I think that, although there may be relevant and valid grains of truth regarding this growing trend to blame obese people for the world's ills, it's mainly a very narrow and negative way to view everything. I also worry; don't people already dislike/hate/despite fat people enough? Valid, accurate information should Not be suppressed, but Dr. Brownell is correct: how it's "framed" really matters a great deal.

[Noah]

What matters is the source of the calories.

I could become obese by eating a vegetarian selection of sustainably-produced foods and yet have equivalent fuel and topsoil consumption (and pollution production) much less than my thin alter ego who lives next door.

For example, I could eat an extra oil-covered sustainably-grown salad each day and gain a pound a month for a few years while my thin alter ego eats just enough meat and potatoes each day to maintain his weight. I might eat 18% more calories than my thin alter ego, but he's the guy contributing to food insecurity and world oil demands, regardless of what I weigh.

-Noah

[Mara]

I think the simplicity of this argument is unfair to obese people. While obese people might very well contribute to the problems discussed, these problems are also connected to many factors that go beyond obesity, itself. To point the finger at obese people (or people who eat meat) seems very ignorant and short-sighted. People want to find convenient targets too easily for these very inter-dependent and complex problems.

[Noah]

"To point the finger at obese people (or people who eat meat) seems very ignorant and short-sighted. "

Two different groups of people, there, people who eat meat and people who are obese.

Please don't treat them equivalently.

[Noah]

Also, don't forget that I eat meat myself, occasionally. I've been the thin guy in that equation quite often, and might be so again.

Apparently, a pound of chicken requires 2 pounds of grain to produce, while a pound of beef requires 9 pounds of grain to produce. In addition, factory farming is hydrocarbon-intensive.

Mara, let me know if you would information on this.

-Noah

[Noah]

Sorry, Mara.

I meant, let me know if you would like information on the topic of food choices and their effect on the environment. The connection is actually direct and easily grasped.

-Noah

[Mara]

Noah, I wonder what your thoughts are on meat if it's produced with humane practices, as much as possible, for both animals and the earth? It might still be costly in many ways, but the fact remains: most people are going to eat meat when they can. Meat consumption will continue to be argued over, but that won't change people's minds about eating meat. They will, if they can, for a variety of reasons, both good and bad. I do see alot of finger-pointing from the media at both groups, (meat-eaters and obese people). This is dismaying, but not surprising to me.

[Noah]

Meat produced humanely is better for the animals than meat that is factory-farmed. Ruminant animals that are allowed to forage are better for the environment than ruminant animals that are fed farm-grown grain. People who eat meat occasionally are better for the environment than people who eat meat frequently. Vegans who maximize their protein consumption while minimizing their fiber consumption require fewer nutritional breaks to eat meat and dairy than vegans who disregard their protein and fiber consumption.

Some vegans eat a lot of soy. Soy products might be unhealthy to eat. Unfortunately, leaving soy out of the vegan diet makes it harder to increase protein while keeping fiber consumption reasonable. A compromise is to eat closer to RDA's for protein. American's can healthfully decrease their protein intake, who knew?

Vegan recipes are difficult. It takes creativity and discrimination to explore the taste profiles available to raw foods eaters, fruitarians, vegans who eat flourless, gluten-free, cooked-oils free, vinegar-free, soy-free, tomato-free.

People on types of vegan diets demonstrate undesirable preferences for a particular set of tastes that mark their food choices. Despite the sometimes sophisticated set of diet rules that they follow, they stll act like kids in deciding what food tastes they will tolerate. Their diet has those few tastes in it at every meal, and possibly with every bite and chew. The only variety they want is the variety possible while protecting their access to the eating experiences they seemingly have to have. That's OK if they follow a sophisticated set of nutritional rules (for example, sugar maximums with healthful carb, protein, and fat ranges and source-variety minimums) but not OK if their nutritional rules are uninformed (for example, eat only raw foods and only fruit before noon). Even if my diet rules are nutritionally sophisticated, I'm likely to break them unless my circumstances force me to eat the way that I specify (for example, because beans are my only available high-protein food).

I bet that vegan converts find meat and dairy creeping back onto their table less because their body needs the protein and more because they follow their tongue. First it leads them to familiar tastes from their omnivorous (and addictive-food containing) diet, then it leads them back to the omnivorous diet.

Test this out on yourself. Try avoiding alcohol, caffiene, chocolate, salt, tomatoes, heated oils, soy, vinegar, meat, flours, and dairy while keeping your sugar consumption under 50 grams. Try it for a year or so. No problem, right? Then try eating your food at room-temperature only for another year. If there's an addictive (or craving-generating) property to foods you remember eating and to the foods you still eat, you'll notice it. The tastes you eat in your current diet will be recognizable to you as well. Vanilla, malted grain, ghee, caramel(lo), butterscotch, fried corn oil, strawberry cream, malted grain, pumpkin spice, cocoa, whey, salted butter, coffee, white bread, milk, baked muffins, cheese pizza, irish cream, those tastes (and maybe others like wine and malt liquor) and your sense of them are usually accessible to you (unless you purposefully block them). How you organize your bites, what vegetable and grain combinations you prefer, your preference of some beans over others, will matter a great deal. You will want to keep those taste markers from your old diet. Your tastes will have a recognizable profile. It might even contain mother's milk, who knows?

If I eat meat, it might be because I eat it with lots of salt, or because I ate it with lots of satisfaction. Maybe I crave the morphine-like opiate compounds that I create from meat during digestion.

Sometimes I sing my lullabies of hunger to myself without caring about my audience and my lyrics.

Should I try to lull my hunger with songs about humanely-produced meat? Mmm, mmm, doing so lends appropriateness to the budget-minded choice of factory-farmed meat. I am on a budget, after all, and my ethics have no price tag. Yet.

Visit meat.org.

I already visited meat.org and watched their video and cried. Is humanely-produced meat a good thing? Heck yes. I was surprised that I cried, but my song remains the same (well, almost).

I wonder if working in a slaughterhouse would change my tune completely. Actually, working in a slaughterhouse would probably just bring in the backup singers.

Anyway, Mara, those are my thoughts on humanely-produced meat and dairy. I'm for them. Thanks for asking.

[Mara]

Your welcome. I'm so glad I'm not a vegan. Or a vegetarian. I love seafood, steak and egg salad, for instance. So, whatever. Meaning: I'm grateful for whatever I eat, when I eat it with mindfulness, pleasure and gratitude - and stop eating before I get too full, no matter how good it tastes. Food and eating are alot easier than many people make them out to be. I believe in the joys of fresh corn-on-the-cob w/some real butter lovingly put on it, and grilled shrimp. Or scallops. What a lovely meal! I don't believe in worrying obssesively over every bite of food, or moaning about one's cholesterol, & weight, or the calories, fat grams, ect. in food. **That worry is the TRUE addiction.*** (Notwithstanding that desserts require a careful approach, of course). Although I care about animals, I also don't believe in lecturing and scolding people over their choices, and, in general, souring the mood for everyone. I love food and am grateful for it. I think this gratitude, more than anything else, helps me choose wisely the foods that are best for my body. Food is not perfect; nor is life on this earth in any way. Can improvements be made? Sure. Should I, or anyone fret over every darn thing? No. No, no, no. And, that is all I have to say on this.

[Noah]

Hi, Mara.

Veganism is not something everyone practices, all right. Certainly eaten enough hamburger, eggs, yogurt, and cream in my time. However, even with organic cream, the major difference between it and commercial is that it does not contain hormones, antibiotics, and chemicals from contaminated feed (I hope). The cows otherwise get treated much the same way as commercial cows.

"..on this."

Mmm, that gives me room to prognosticate. Thanks again.

You know, there's an approach to cooking called "foodpairing" that provides food maps for common foods (with a fair amount of spices and herbs), allowing someone to combine foods close in location on their food map. The end result is unusual pairings of food that are very compatible. One pairing I'm very familiar with (only because they do taste similar) is peas and chocolate. Too much time grinding up frozen peas taught me the hard way that the only ice cream I'll ever get from peas is chocolate ice cream. Bleah. I don't eat cocoa. The significance to me is not the recipes that the approach produces, but rather the significance of the food maps. Very different foods have flavors/smells in common.

I wonder if anyone could design a recipe tester. Mine would work like this:

Noah:"Blended 1/2 cup green peas and 1/2 cup strawberries and 1 tsp honey, ate it frozen."
Tester: "Rejected. Strong cocoa notes. No sharp contrasts. Breath-negation of cocoa notes not cannot occur. "
Noah: "Damn!"

[Noah]

Sorry, that's "Breath-negation of cocoa notes cannot occur." meaning just that even if I held my breath while eating it, I was definitely physiologically experiencing part, an uncomfortably incomplete part, of eating chocolate ice cream. People manipulate their breathing (for example, while choking on a burrito). They do it not only to swallow well, but also because their food ingredients, their food construction, their bite selection, and their chewing method - where's the dressed herbs specifically chewed to cut the flavor of missing vegetable juices in their dry bite - all contribute to how they'll accept their own breathing.

I hold my breath when I'm in a stinky room, everyone does. Imagine an odor that smells really good and then shifts to smelling less intense or even smelling bad (for example, like raw squid or ammonia) in that room. Now imagine that you smelled that each time you breathed. That breathing is like chewing and swallowing your food, including your buttered cob of corn. Do you really know how your buttered corn smells?

Seems unlikely, considering how if you didn't swallow sometimes, you'd be inhaling saliva, food juices, or food. However, there's several causes for an unconscious swallow, including a smell or taste or two.

If you felt uncomfortable about inhaling the human purpose of a cow's factory (meat.org) life, that would surprise me. I mean, the smell of your steak was in the food itself, and you held your breath anyway, so how would you ever know?

[Deirdre Pizzoferrato]

Wow… quite a debate… my two cents in just a second…
WRT the thread’s topic – It appears that these two researchers picked the wrong population to start number crunching with. As if the obese citizens of the world need more stigma. Unfortunately, the point of this study was lost in translation – that being, if urban societies encouraged and promoted more walking and cycling routes, this would in fact cut back on oil demands, green gas emissions, biofuels and all the while promoting exercise, thus leading to weight loss, more normal distribution of BMI and overall healthier population and planet (minus the 18%). Whheewwww…. Now if only they chose to use “gym rats” who drove their SUVs to the gym 6 days a week, consumed countess protein bars with non-biodegradable wrappers, drank copious amounts of water out of plastic water bottles – took 2 showers a day… what would their carbon footprints look like?
Choosing a population of citizens that already bear the burden of stigmatization and ostracization was irresponsible and cruel – no matter what the purpose of the study was intended for.
Furthermore with regard to the ‘vegan vs. meat lover’s debate’, obesity is far more complicated than simply not stopping when we’re full, eating meat versus soy or even wheatgrass vs. potatoes. Obesity has been a gradual evolution of endocrine mismanagement. Weight loss goes against the fundamental design of our entire physiology and with great efforts by our endocrine systems. In fact, the main purpose of the endocrine system is designed to fuel, build and store – quite handy back in ‘the olden days’ (a million or so years ago…) when our ancestors had to walk 5 miles in order to hunt and scavenge food. Back then, our ancestors didn’t know what pizza smelled like, what a cupcake looked like. Our endocrine systems have gone haywire due to the chemical sensory input from our industrialized diet, which includes sight and smell. Maybe back then a blueberry bush had the same effect that a hot fudge sundae has today – but the ramifications of indulging in the latter vs. the former are obvious – and have gotten us where we are today.
Deirdre Pizzoferrato
President, Beanstalk Express
www.beanstalkexpress.com

[Noah]

"Furthermore with regard to the ‘vegan vs. meat lover’s debate’, obesity is far more complicated than simply not stopping when we’re full, eating meat versus soy or even wheatgrass vs. potatoes."
I agree obesity does not depend on eating a vegan or nonvegan diet. A vegan diet can make me obese.
"Our endocrine systems have gone haywire due to the chemical sensory input from our industrialized diet, which includes sight and smell."
Please distinguish between chemical sensory input creating an appetite for a food and a haywire endocrine system creating an appetite for a food (if that is what happens). If it is correct to say that the endocrine system responds to certain food ingredients (for example, HFCS), then it could go haywire on a diet high in fructose. I wonder whether the endocrine system's response to food ingredients cause the brain's opiate pathways to be activated by a food that makes the endocrine haywire. Either way, the brain turns to reward seeking from the foods that caused the haywire endocrine system before.
"Maybe back then a blueberry bush had the same effect that a hot fudge sundae has today"
No. Blueberries contain fiber and fruit sugars and no fat, while a hot fudge sundae, for the same amount of sugar, adds saturated fats, a different profile of sugars, and chocolate (including many chemicals and in particular anandamide and theobromine). Ice cream also adds the eating experience of milk, something we developed a taste for as an infant. While you can get some sense of a creamy eating experience from eating blueberries, adding dairy cream to the blueberries changes the eating experience. A caveman's response to a hot-fudge sundae would probably be very different from their response to blueberries.
"the ramifications of indulging in the latter vs. the former are obvious”
The ramifications are different in terms of bodily health, yes, and they are different in terms of learned response to the food. You encounter that difference when you stop a caveman from eating blueberries versus when you stop a caveman from eating hot-fudge sundaes.
As far as feelings of fullness, some people eat entirely visually, clearing their plate regardless of how they feel. Some people eat to the end of a list (salad, soup, bread), and some people eat until they are full (or swallow lots of air). Maybe someday people will eat until the end of a smell or the start of a taste, or suddenly no longer feel like eating. Anyway, my interest in vegan recipes and eating methods is with the pleasure-seeking that the eater relies on to consume their vegan food.
The feast-famine model of appetite does not give much credit to smell, taste, chewing and the signals they provide the modern caveman (for example, tasting bitter when eating a poisonous berry). Maybe my nose and mouth (can) do more than passively detect flavors/textures/chewing methods that my brain associates with the pleasure-providing foods.
It is possible that the associations work according to thresholds, combinations, and sequences of odors and tastes (and breathing), and that people can predict and control whether associations are activated by manipulating intensities, combinations, and sequences of tastes, smells, textures, and chewing behaviors.
Anyway, good for me is when I don't eat food while I am very excited or anxious. My breathing is different, what I want to eat is different, and when I’m satisfied is very different.

[Deirdre Pizzoferrato]

It is all connected, Noah. And really not quite as complicated as you are making it.

The endocrine system is composed, among many things, of key hormones that trigger our desire as well as cessation of eating. One hormone in particular, Ghrelin, is believed to be (in part) an initiator to the desire to eat. Ghrelin triggers the same dopamine producing neurons as delicious food, sex and most recreational drugs. It is these neurons, which are found in the pleasure center of the brain (VTA) that triggers the same sensation (through the memory of previous encounters) of pleasure and expectation of reward - which in certain individuals becomes a habitual cycle.

Now... this is where I think you didn't understand my caveman point. All of these hormones - ghrelin, leptin, insulin and others - all play a role in eating, digestion and storage. Their functions were fine tuned a million or so years ago to deal with the ongoing threat of starvation - which at the time posed the greatest risk of extinction. But the function of these hormones have not evolved along with our industrial diet. So yes... ghrelin might have been very handy back in the day when the blueberry bush was happened upon. That triggers pleasure and reward in the caveman and thus energy in... energy saved. The intended goal of Ghrelin was accomplished. Fast forward a million or so years later, and the same mechanism is still in play, this time it's calorically dense foods in an era where storage isn't often needed. This is where our endocrine system has gone haywire.

Obviously I know the ramifications of a blueberry bush vs. a hot fudge sundae. That wasn't the point.

Hopefully I clarified that a bit better. By the way, Ghrelin and Leptin (both newly discovered hormones within the past 20 years) are still intensely studied and the big picture of their functions are still being discovered. I'm telling you... our endocrine system is extremely intricate, and just not wired for our diets today.

Deirdre Pizzoferrato
Beanstalk Express

[Noah]

"It is all connected, Noah"

I wish it were not. I would be pleased if selection of ingredients for my meals were sufficient to guarantee that I ate without undue cravings for foods not on my list. I could do it - you don't know how easily. Give me the balancing equations, I'll give you the meals. Unfortunately, my brain, eyes, nose, mouth, and emotional states (my breathing) have a stake in it, too.

"Ghrelin"

So that's a hormone that starts pleasure-seeking in the brain for a food once consumed. However, once the brain learns about the food, the brain works with the visual, gustatory, and olfactory systems without requiring a haywire endocrine system for it to function. Maybe food ingredients do not require digestion before the brain recognizes them as desirable and encourages their consumption. I vaguely remember reading a book about salt consumption and lab experiments on rats.... You could back to the womb looking for when the brain started learning about foods, but you're missing something if you're ignoring the tastes and smells babies are exposed to (and prefer).

Meanwhile, another route than hormone therapies to halting cravings and food urges for normal-weight people on a balanced diet would be nice, and the nose and mouth and chewing and recipes offer some possibilities. Pharmaceutical companies should not be apologists for the endocrine system, at least not on my behalf.

Discipline, distraction, and positive emotion are nice choices to cut cravings, and even denial works sometimes, but prediction and control of the development and activation of food associations - that's where to go. Some Rudd Center folks look to the environment to ensure that a balanced diet takes its effects. The womb, mother's choice of breastmilk flavors and protein composition, the blackbox of people's mental goals for eating experience (google "Weizman smell map"), and that eating experience itself, can all be framed as part of the environment, if they like. Somebody, some scientist, someone other than this student assistant from Cali, please go there.

Well, the Rudd folks know from my comments 2 years ago("Is Obesity An Epidemic?") that I'd like the food environment to change, and if scientists leave the blackbox uncracked, humans might still become healthful eaters.

Anyway, sorry to go off topic, Dierdre. You're right on - those bike-riding vegan locavore villains have got to reduce their carbon footprint. A group of students at MIT have calculated that the footprint for a Buddhist monk who lives in the forest for six months of the year and on a minimum income the rest has a carbon footprint twice that of the global average (see the eurekalert article, "MIT tracks carbon footprints of different lifestyles"), because he receives the public good of American government services. No one escapes their global responsibilities for carbon overproduction in this country, but how we involve ourselves in reducing the overproduction depends on the source of the overproduction. That Buddhist monk should lobby Congress to institute sustainability measures in government services. Everyone should change their sources of food, if they can, but asking them to reduce their caloric consumption as well would be getting ridiculous.

A weightlifter's protein consumption could be as high or higher than obese American's. Their caloric consumption might be as high as some obese American's caloric consumption, as well. Getting the information out that food choices effect environmental health stills seems like a priority to me, even though people will misuse that information to show contempt for other people, including meat-eaters, overweight people, weight-lifters, growing teenagers, tall people...

It's the junk food consumption that is bad for the environment, anyway. Eating less of it should not be an excuse to keep eating it.

[Deirdre Pizzoferrato]

I totally agree Noah!

And yes... a mother's diet during pregnancy and lactation plays a huge part in future food preferences of her baby. My company, Beanstalk Express, is dedicated to educating parents and caregivers about prevention - beginning as early as pregnancy. I am a HUGE advocate of preventing childhood obesity through education. If you have time, check our website (nothing for sale! Just great info) at www.beanstalkexpress.com

[Noah]

OK, Dierdre. Thanks for the conversation. -Noah