Abstract
Obesity represents a titanic cost for the world's health systems but also a substantial ecological cost to the environment. High energy foods have been shown to be the major contributor to Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, challenging the diet-environment-health triangle. The waste of resources and the unnecessary ecological cost due to an excessive consumption of foods leading to obesity have been ignored so far. Metabolic Food Waste [MFW(kg of food)] corresponds to the amount of food leading to Excess Body Fat (EBF) and its impact on the environment, expressed as carbon [MFW(kgCO2eq)], water [MFW(×10 L)] and land footprint [MFW(×10 m2)]. We aim to estimate the MFW(kg of food) in the seven FAO regions, Europe (EU), North America and Oceania (NAO), Latin America (LA), Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Industrialized Asia (IA), North Africa, West and Central Asia (NAWCA) and South and Southeast Asia (SSEA), and evaluate its impact on ecological footprints. The overall impact of MFW(tons of food) in the world corresponds to 140.7 million tons associated to overweight and obesity. Between the different regions, EU is responsible of the greatest amount of MFW(tons of food) volume (39.2 million tons), followed by NAO (32.5 million tons). In terms of ecological impact, EU and NAO displayed the highest values for all three MFW footprints, about 14 times more than SSA. We provide evidence of the enormous amount of food lost through obesity and its ecological impact. Reducing metabolic food waste associated with obesity will contribute in reducing the ecological impact of unbalanced dietary patterns through an improvement of human health.
Highlights
Obesity is a chronic metabolic disorder with a complex etiology representing a remarkable risk factor for the onset of different chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes type 2 and cancers, responsible for 60% of deaths worldwide [1]
We introduced a new index to calculate the ecological impact of obesity, Metabolic Food Waste [MFW(kg of food)], corresponding to the amount of food leading to Excess Body Fat (EBF) and its impact on the environment expressed as carbon [MFW(kgCO2eq)], water [MFW(×10 L)], and land footprint [MFW(×10 m2)] [8]
It is interesting to note that the highest percentage of MFW(tons of food) in North America and Oceania (NAO) came from obese people (67.7%), EU with a similar percentage between OW and OB accounted for the highest volume of MFW
Summary
Obesity is a chronic metabolic disorder with a complex etiology representing a remarkable risk factor for the onset of different chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes type 2 and cancers, responsible for 60% of deaths worldwide [1]. Since 1974 the energy content of diet has increased 50%, reaching more than 1,400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion per year [7] In this view, obesity condition represents a considerable cost for the environment [8]. We introduced a new index to calculate the ecological impact of obesity, Metabolic Food Waste [MFW(kg of food)], corresponding to the amount of food leading to Excess Body Fat (EBF) and its impact on the environment expressed as carbon [MFW(kgCO2eq)], water [MFW(×10 L)], and land footprint [MFW(×10 m2)] [8]. We estimated MFW(kg of food) of 63.1 and 127.2 kg per capita in an observational study on 60 overweight and obese subjects, and of 2.081 million kg of food for the Italian population, with the highest contributor from animal products in terms of carbon emissions, water consumption and land use. We claim that increased population adiposity, because of its contribution to climate change from unnecessary food consumption, should be recognized, in addition to being a health and sociological issue, as an environmental problem
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