How the energy glut is changing our bodies, our health and our environment
For a hundred thousand years the main source of energy that humans have used was their own physical power. People basically had to walk, ride, row or sail to move themselves and their stuff. But nowadays all that has changed, with intensive mechanisation.
This mechanisation is mostly powered by the burning of fossil fuels and it comes at a well known environmental cost. But pollution is not the only hazard for human health caused by machines, another more subtle danger of the abuse of energy is the increase of our body weight. In their book “The energy glut”[1] Ian Roberts and Phil Edwards explain how generalised mechanisation in transport and farming reduces the need of physical human effort, and increases the availability of high-caloric food. So we eat more, spend less and put on a lot of weight.
Humans used their own physical strength to move
An increase of the population’s weight is behind the increase in cardiovascular diseases, type II diabetes and cancer. Around 1 in 13 deaths in Europe have been attributed to overweight and obesity. Population overweight cost the UK £15.8 billion per year, including £4.2 billion in costs to the NHS. In the USA the increase weight has a direct cost of $160 billion per year in medical treatments and $480 billion in indirect cost (including $20 billion in extra fuel and electricity). But is not only about money… to move our extra weight we need extra energy. In the USA an extra 3520 million litres of road transport fuel and 1325 millions of airplane fuel a year are used due to increase of average passenger weight. Bear in mind this is not only due to obese people but due to the whole population being heavier. In other words, our abuse of mechanical energy is double-poisoning our environment, and killing us slowly but steadily.
Sick populations not sick individuals
It is important to understand that this process of gaining weight is not happening only to some individuals that become unnecessarily obese. It is the whole population that is putting on weight. Even lean people are now heavier than they would have been before. The fact that there are more “officially” obese people is not the problem, it is just the reflection that the whole population weight has been pushed upwards. Is a problem of unhealthy population rather than unhealthy individuals! That the whole population that is being affected, and not just some individuals, suggests that there are forces driving the change that are not under the control of the individual citizens.
High caloric food is often more affordable than the healthy option
Is not just about making individual decisions on lifestyles. Firstly people do not have always the choices of healthy lifestyles (e.g. restricted access to safe cycling, walking, or reliable public transport). Secondly we do not always have the information and often we are purposely misinformed (“Marketing” and “advertising” are euphemisms often used for such strategies). And finally, often the healthy choices as too expensive at market value. For example, often the healthy food that is sold in the developed (and developing) world has a much higher cost that the more unhealthy options and is not available to people with lower income.
Who is going to fix this?
Unfortunately the “markets” (in the capitalists sense) are not going to help to solve the problem. They are actually creating the problem. The markets of transport and food are effectively dominated by large corporations and cartels that are not interested in individuals making healthy choices. They would rather have populations of “consumers” that regularly drive everywhere and eat cheap hyper-caloric food, so that they can spend more money consuming other unnecessary goods. This is not mere speculation, the USA is a clear example with 6% of the World population but 33% of the human biomass due to obesity.[4] China is moving fast in that direction with declining use of bicycles since 1990 and car ownership has gone up while obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular deaths and cancer is increasing.
Other means of transport like cycling could be the solution
To solve the problem we need to provide citizens with healthy options for transportation, such as bicycle and pedestrian friendly cities and roads, or reliable and affordable public transport. We need to guarantee that local and environmentally friendly food is available and affordable. We need to provide people with true and reliable information about their choices. In summary, we a need strong public policies to counteract the forces of the markets and defend the health of the people.
by 
European Greens in London 