Abstract
The obesity burden, with 1.5 billion overweight (OW) and 500 million obese (OB) worldwide, significantly increased the risk of degenerative diseases. Excessive consumption of foods that are energy dense lead to obesity, which represents a titanic cost for not only the world’s health systems but also a substantial ecological cost to the environment. The waste of resources and the unnecessary green house gas emissions (GHGs) emission, due to “obesigen” consumption of foods, have been ignored so far in practical assessments of ecological impacts. Our position is that food eaten above physiological needs, manifesting as obesity, should be considered waste. In this study, we developed a new indicator, metabolic food waste [MFW(kg of food)], corresponding to the amount of food leading to excess body fat and its impact on environment expressed as carbon , water [MFW(×10 L)], and land footprint . Results shows that the average amount of MFW(kg of food) was of 63.1 and 127.2 kg/capita in a observational study on 60 OW and OB subjects. Animal products contributed mostly to MFW(kg of food) in both OW (24.3 kg) and OB (46.5 kg), followed by cereals, legumes and starchy roots (19.4 kg OW; 38.9 kg OB), sugar and sweets (9.0 kg OW; 16.4 kg OB), and alcoholic beverages (7.5 kg OW; 20.1 kg OB). When dietary intake corresponding to MFW was transformed in ecological indexes, animal products displayed the highest values for carbon emissions, water consumption, and land use in both OW and OB followed by cereals, legumes, and starchy roots. The estimated MFW(kg of food) of the Italian population resulted to be 2.081 million kilograms of food for OB and OW. Reducing obesity will make a contribution toward achieving sustainable and functional diets, preserving and re-allocating natural resources for fighting hunger and malnutrition, and reducing GHGs emissions. Although further evidences in epidemiological studies are needed, MFW represents an innovative and reliable tool to unravel the diet–environment–health trilemma.
Highlights
During the last decade, there has been significant public, scientific, and political awareness raised about the importance of following a sustainable dietary pattern, optimizing agriculture food chains, and limiting food loss and waste (FLW) to protect the environment [1]
We developed a new indicator, metabolic food waste [MFW(kg of food)], corresponding to the amount of food leading to excess body fat (EBF) and its impact on environment expressed as carbon [MFW(kgCO2eq)], water [MFW(×10 L)], and land footprint [MFW(×10m2)]
Ecological footprints corresponding to EBF were of 2.409 and 1.466 million MFW(kgCO2eq) for green house gas emissions (GHGs) emissions; 4.090 and 2.246 million MFW(m3 water) for water footprint and of 34,858 and 19,612 million MFW(m2 land) for land footprint, respectively, for OW and OB
Summary
There has been significant public, scientific, and political awareness raised about the importance of following a sustainable dietary pattern, optimizing agriculture food chains, and limiting food loss and waste (FLW) to protect the environment [1]. The majority of the evidence clearly shows that, for the same amount of food, animal products such as fish and meat require considerable natural resources and are among the highest contributors to GHGs emission, differently from food of vegetable origins characterized by a lower ecological impact [6]. The obesity condition, other than being an excessive fat deposit, is characterized by an excessive and uncontrolled cytokines production, a condition defined as “low-grade chronic inflammation” associated with the development of degenerative diseases [13, 14]. In this context, the importance of the diet, as inducer or preventer of obesity, is paramount for maintaining physiological homeostasis and preserving health
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