America, Home of the Fat
When you sit back and wonder, "Why do people in other nations hate Americans?" In addition to Vanilla Ice, the Kardashians, the second and third Matrix movies and Flo Rida, you now have a new answer to add to the mix: We're so fat we're killing the world.
According to a study appearing in the Journal BMC Public Health, North America is so fat that the continent has more than one third of the world surplus weight, even though it only has five percent of the world's population. And that is because of us. Americans are by far the fattest fatties in the world. As MSNBC points out, the average weight of people across the world is 137 pounds, but us? We check in at a whopping 178 pounds on average.
America's Weight Burden
North America holds just 5% of the world's population but over one third of its surplus weight, mostly thanks to Americans.
Despite this being extremely gross and sort of depressing, the problem — according to Ian Roberts, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the lead author of the report — is that our big bellies are crushing everyone and everything else. "When people think about environmental sustainability, they immediately focus on population," Roberts told The BBC. "Actually, when it comes down to it, it’s not how many mouths there are to feed, it is how much flesh there is on the planet."
"Actually, when it comes down to it, it’s not how many mouths there are to feed, it is how much flesh there is on the planet."
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With our fat mouths begging for food, it leaves little for everyone else, adds Roberts. "We do not move our bodies so much but we are biologically programmed to eat," he told the Telegraph. "We often point the finger at poor women in Africa having too many babies. But we've also got to think of this fatness thing; it's part of the same issue of exceeding our planetary limits." In fact, The Daily reports that Roberts' survey showed that if every other person in the world decided to become big pigs like Americans, farmers would have to increase production by 20 percent or we would run out of food.
Not only are we super fat, we don't have to change our behaviors in order to survive, so most of us simply don't. "In the United States, people probably move less than in the human history of the planet," Roberts added. "The fossil fuels are like this splurge of energy — it’s made food super cheap and it’s made human movement redundant."
"In the United States, people probably move less than in the human history of the planet."
America stands in stark contrast to those living in Bangladesh. It only takes 12 Americans to equal a ton, while it takes 20 Bangladeshis to equal that same amount.
Make no mistake about it: Americans are fat and we're killing the world. The only way we haven't destroyed it faster is because we can't figure out how to make eating other humans acceptable. Yet.
[Pic via Flickr - Mike Licht]
