This is a somewhat sensitive topic to tackle. We know that overweight is not healthy.  We also know where overweight comes from.  For most people it is from overeating.  Overeating in turn comes from a variety of things like

• misdirected nervousness,
• the enjoyment of the activity of eating,
• the incredible amount of devious advertising we are subjected to,
• the fast food industry with its high-calorie, high-fat comfort foods,
• the substances introduced into our processed and restaurant foods to make it more ‘tasty’ (read as ‘addictive’… spelled MSG and its dozens of alternate names) not for our good, but for theirs
• deep cravings from an unfulfilled childhood (whew! that’s deep), to name just a few!

Then there’s another industry, the weight loss industry, which if you think about it really doesn’t want you to lose weight, but rather wants you to spend lots of money trying to lose weight.  Think of the built in conflict-of-interest in an industry which, if it is successful, will lead to its own decline! (It also makes you wonder if western medicine is really setup to make you well, or keep you just sick enough to consume expensive pharmaceuticals and healthcare services. But I digress…)

So what’s the connection with global warming you may ask? Well the food we consume is the focus of a trememdous amount of energy, the energy of its growing, processing, packaging, transportation, storage and refrigeration, disposal of wastes, etc.  All that energy would be reduced if we simply ate for our needs and not for all the other reasons we have to overeat.

As individuals and as a species, we would both figuratively and literally, tread much more lightly on this delicate planet if we ate only the food we needed.

Perhaps, if you’ve tried to diet before and failed to lose weight or keep the weight off, dieting to save the planet may give you the motivation to make lasting changes.

See also Food.