Might fat people have to purchase carbon credits? I've seen a few of the global warming folks and fitness does not appear to be a high priority for all.
Keeping fit 'good for the planet'
Keeping fit 'good for the planet'
Heavy Folks and Global Warming
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I thought the Obama administration was supposed to be environmentally friendly and was going to be focused like a laser on greenhouse gases. I think we need more focus.
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Interesting question. I can say that when I recently visited a very "green" European city -- dense, compact, walkable, mixed use, super-bike-friendly, several public transit options available, few elevators, lots of stairs, on and on -- I did not see any hefty people (except a few American tourists). Folks of all ages there were fit and slender and amazingly skilled with bicycling through auto, pedestrian and trolley traffic.
The ladies can speed around deftly on bikes in complex traffic while wearing skirts and high heels, toting various combinations of purses, briefcases, children, even adult passengers. You'll even see folks carrying on cell phone chats while cycling; and not uncommon at all to see cyclists smoking cigarettes while pedalling along. The bikes are amazing, sturdy and with very good child and grocery carrying devices. WAY beyond panniers.
Kids have amazing bike skills and sense about traffic safety as well. They start teaching them young! This city of about a million has only 5 traffic deaths a year, that's the statistic I heard. To watch all the different people getting around on foot, on bikes, and in all sorts of motorized vehicles is like watching an incredibly tight dance team doing improvisational choreography to very fast music.
But I digress. Here's where I started out trying to get to: maybe if we focus on getting greener, we might experience as a side effect a tendency to get leaner as well.
Notably, I don't remember seeing any folks on crutches or in wheelchairs, and had to wonder -- do folks with mobility challenges live somewhere else? Are there fewer such folks b/c the population exercises more day in and day out and stays fit, less prone to injury and disease, esp. degenerative ones? What happens if someone breaks a leg and lives 5 flights up a narrow spiral stair (very common space saving element in this city)?
The ladies can speed around deftly on bikes in complex traffic while wearing skirts and high heels, toting various combinations of purses, briefcases, children, even adult passengers. You'll even see folks carrying on cell phone chats while cycling; and not uncommon at all to see cyclists smoking cigarettes while pedalling along. The bikes are amazing, sturdy and with very good child and grocery carrying devices. WAY beyond panniers.
Kids have amazing bike skills and sense about traffic safety as well. They start teaching them young! This city of about a million has only 5 traffic deaths a year, that's the statistic I heard. To watch all the different people getting around on foot, on bikes, and in all sorts of motorized vehicles is like watching an incredibly tight dance team doing improvisational choreography to very fast music.
But I digress. Here's where I started out trying to get to: maybe if we focus on getting greener, we might experience as a side effect a tendency to get leaner as well.
Notably, I don't remember seeing any folks on crutches or in wheelchairs, and had to wonder -- do folks with mobility challenges live somewhere else? Are there fewer such folks b/c the population exercises more day in and day out and stays fit, less prone to injury and disease, esp. degenerative ones? What happens if someone breaks a leg and lives 5 flights up a narrow spiral stair (very common space saving element in this city)?
Why not government imposed weight standards and for those unable to meet those standards, the obligation to purchase the excess pounds from the more disciplined who can make weight? The disciplined will then have the money to make their communities greener which will help the undisciplined who can then relocate to a more disciplined community and work on getting thinner and hence greener.
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Then what do we do about tall people? Should my husband be discriminated against because he is 6'8"? Even if he were underweight, he'd weigh more than an underweight average male who is slightly over 5'9" tall? Ditto for 6'3" daughter as compared to the average female at slightly over 5'3"? He can't fit into a coach seat because his legs are too long, but the airlines don't accommodate him for this "disability" over which he has no control. He has to pay for business class.
That article is the silliest thing I've ever read. Case in point, here's only one paragraph (though all of them could be pulled apart 
)
A report published in the International Journal of Epidemiology suggests because food production is such a major contributor to global warming, a lean population, will consume almost 20 per cent less food and produce fewer greenhouse gases than a population in which 40 per cent of people are obese.
What can I conclude from reading this alone?
1. Oh my my!!! Oh horrors! Food production aggravates global warming? Let's not make so much food! But we'll get hungry. Oh. What to do. Oh! High school English to the rescue...let me think...what was it Jonathan Swift had to say about eating? Oh Oh! Something about eating Irish babies. Yes, that's right, that's what it was. "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick." This could do with some serious updating. Beneficial to the Publick? How about "Beneficial to the EARTH." There! That would help. Let's do the Swift thing and consume Irish babies so as to cut down on naughty food production.
2. Lean populations consume 20% less food? Tell that to a Tour de France cyclist. They have negative body fat on them and they consume calories every day of the race to feed a village. Maybe we should eat them, too. Might be a little tough in the thighs but hey, we must do our part for global warming!
3. Greenhouse gases? Horrors! Are we talking taking beans and cabbage off the menu?
Point made. I could go on but I'll stop here. I'm having too much funn.
)A report published in the International Journal of Epidemiology suggests because food production is such a major contributor to global warming, a lean population, will consume almost 20 per cent less food and produce fewer greenhouse gases than a population in which 40 per cent of people are obese.
What can I conclude from reading this alone?
1. Oh my my!!! Oh horrors! Food production aggravates global warming? Let's not make so much food! But we'll get hungry. Oh. What to do. Oh! High school English to the rescue...let me think...what was it Jonathan Swift had to say about eating? Oh Oh! Something about eating Irish babies. Yes, that's right, that's what it was. "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick." This could do with some serious updating. Beneficial to the Publick? How about "Beneficial to the EARTH." There! That would help. Let's do the Swift thing and consume Irish babies so as to cut down on naughty food production.
2. Lean populations consume 20% less food? Tell that to a Tour de France cyclist. They have negative body fat on them and they consume calories every day of the race to feed a village. Maybe we should eat them, too. Might be a little tough in the thighs but hey, we must do our part for global warming!
3. Greenhouse gases? Horrors! Are we talking taking beans and cabbage off the menu?
Point made. I could go on but I'll stop here. I'm having too much funn.
Airlines have already instituted policies for larger people - but it's due to them "spilling over" into other passengers' space, not based on poundage.
If you can't get into the seat, fasten the seatbelt w/ one extender, or put the armrest down once seated, the airline will first try to accommodate you by moving you to a seat next to an empty seat, but if unavailable, you have to pay for a second seat. No comment as to how practical this is considering fewer flights means most have multiple person standby lists and thus few empty seats.
Exit rows used to be the chosen refuge of the long legged, but that has become another "paid for" amenity. :angry:
If you can't get into the seat, fasten the seatbelt w/ one extender, or put the armrest down once seated, the airline will first try to accommodate you by moving you to a seat next to an empty seat, but if unavailable, you have to pay for a second seat. No comment as to how practical this is considering fewer flights means most have multiple person standby lists and thus few empty seats.
Exit rows used to be the chosen refuge of the long legged, but that has become another "paid for" amenity. :angry:
Can you imagine people from the outside looking in at this issue. I wonder if they are saying "How Silly can these folks get?"
It is liken to watching Archie Bunker and wondering what he was going to say or do next.
It is liken to watching Archie Bunker and wondering what he was going to say or do next.
I love that Archie Bunker!
Hate to bust the global warming bubble, but I caught a report that our Sun has been in a cooling phase - no hot spots detected on it for quite some time. Additionally, another star, which has exploded??? (forgive me because I don't know all of the technical terminology for this stuff) and is magnetically attracted to us, leaving a cloud of dust over Earth, which is 'shading' us. So, between this and our Sun in a cooling phase, we are now potentially looking at Global Cooling! I want my Peace Prize! And, I guess I need someone to write a song for me with it being a very convenient truth.
People also talk about the hole in our ozone. I believe that we have this hole for our benefit and that the earth will always take care of herself, adapting to climate changes as well as human inflicted changes. I think the hole in the ozone helps our earth to release gases that would otherwise be harmful to her and all of its inhabitants. Just a few years ago (within the last five years), the ozone hole not only reduced in size, but separated itself into two smaller holes just over Antartica.
It bothers me that humans are blamed for destroying the earth. But, everyone is entitled to their opinion. This article - geez! Changes in diet and consumer consumption of processed foods is a phenomena, but there are also many overweight people who have a 'disease.' Let's tackle that and investigate deeper issues, educate more on nutrition (shop the outside aisles at the grocery store, etc.). But to blame overweight people for not being green and therefore a cause of global warming? Y'all!
BR - your husband is most likely off the charts too for certain insurance. Height/weight (i.e. mortality tables) don't always include the taller or the football player!
Hate to bust the global warming bubble, but I caught a report that our Sun has been in a cooling phase - no hot spots detected on it for quite some time. Additionally, another star, which has exploded??? (forgive me because I don't know all of the technical terminology for this stuff) and is magnetically attracted to us, leaving a cloud of dust over Earth, which is 'shading' us. So, between this and our Sun in a cooling phase, we are now potentially looking at Global Cooling! I want my Peace Prize! And, I guess I need someone to write a song for me with it being a very convenient truth.
People also talk about the hole in our ozone. I believe that we have this hole for our benefit and that the earth will always take care of herself, adapting to climate changes as well as human inflicted changes. I think the hole in the ozone helps our earth to release gases that would otherwise be harmful to her and all of its inhabitants. Just a few years ago (within the last five years), the ozone hole not only reduced in size, but separated itself into two smaller holes just over Antartica.
It bothers me that humans are blamed for destroying the earth. But, everyone is entitled to their opinion. This article - geez! Changes in diet and consumer consumption of processed foods is a phenomena, but there are also many overweight people who have a 'disease.' Let's tackle that and investigate deeper issues, educate more on nutrition (shop the outside aisles at the grocery store, etc.). But to blame overweight people for not being green and therefore a cause of global warming? Y'all!
BR - your husband is most likely off the charts too for certain insurance. Height/weight (i.e. mortality tables) don't always include the taller or the football player!
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