Now, obesity is bad for the environment?

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A report posted today on CNN established that researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine published a study showing that heavier people in the world contributes more to the global warming than thin people (supposedly because transporting heavier people and producing food to feed them costs more).

According to the study

...the lean population has a much smaller carbon footprint. The population with 40 percent obese people requires 19 percent more food energy for its total energy expenditure than the population with 3.5 percent obese people

I'm not against people being healthy and thin, in fact I think it's better to be healthy and if this makes you thiner, it's great, but I found that this kind of reports may put pressure in people who is overweight or obese, and in people who feels that being thin is the only way to be accepted.

My daughter, who is in her right weight and height, is starting to be worried about not being fat, and she's only 5 years old! And if studies like this begin to be more and more prevalent, how can I explain her that being healthy is good, but it's not healthy to exaggerate and feel bad just because people say the only acceptable choice is being thin?

Maybe we should re educate ourselves to do more exercise and be healthy, and also government should be more coherent with their public policies like providing cheaper and healthier food for everyone and greener alternatives to transport.

In Mexico, for example, a government office gives milk to the poor that has high contain of fat and little nutritional value, also, the streets aren't safe for people wanting to use their bicycles to go from one way to another, distances are impossible to do in this kind of vehicle and public transportation doesn't have space for carrying them.

But I think the effort to do our world better can't be reduced to one factor, it has to be a comprehensive effort.

What are we waiting for to do something for our envinronment?

An article in the New York Times, published yesterday, tells how the author, Thomas L. Friedman, met two young American woman in New Delhi, who asked him if he wanted to take a ride with them in their car. The importance of this invitation was the kind of car the women had: an electrical car also powered by solar panels.

The women, both Yale grads, also told him about various initiatives developing in India, like "using neem and garlic as pesticides", steam from a solar plant for cooking or cultivating worms as an alternative for chemical fertilizers.

All this is done by common people, in a country where there's a high rate of poverty. And when I read this I started wondering: why other countries, with more resources, with more possibilities, like EU, or even like Mexico, aren't doing something like these NOW?

What are we waiting for? Another article from the BBC that I read today reports that global warming will be worse this century than the initial estimation.

I will like to see people more conscious about what they can do and try it, even if it sounds strange or crazy to others. It's not possible we are being so reckless with our resources, as if the economy it's the only thing that matters, when the economy can't work if there's nothing to trade.

There's a lot of measures we can take, and the Internet is a good place to find about it.

A person can recycle, reuse water various times, use potable water wisely, a variety of little actions that summed can be helpful. I wish Mexicans will start thinking what are they doing to the world where their children is living and where they are going to be adults. For me, writing about this is the only way to create some consciousness and I hope someone out there will do something else than complain.