Obesity and Industrial Pollution?

[ecosophia]

Just yesterday I encountered and read a preprint of a research article that suggests that the environmental crisis of our time may have a dimension few people realize. The article is by Ethan and Sarah Ludwin-Peery, it's published by the Open Science Foundation, and you can download and read it here. The title?  "A Contamination Theory of the Obesity Epidemic."

The authors point out that obesity in the developed world follows patterns that make no sense in terms of any of the standard theories. It was relatively uncommon until quite recently -- ads like the one I've posted on the left, which you can find in many old magazines, make it clear that too little weight was as common as too much just three quarters of a century ago. The increase in average body weight doesn't correlate to increasing consumption of sugar, carbohydrates, or any of the other usual suspects, nor do studies support the usual theories about why it's prevalent. 

There are also strange details about the distribution of obesity that can't be explained by any of the standard theories. Did you know, for example, that pet animals in the US have been becoming obese at roughly the same rate as human beings?  Or that obesity inversely correlates with altitude?  Check out a map of the United States showing obesity rates by county -- the paper gives this on p. 5 -- and you can see the mountain and upland regions clearly as regions of relative thinness. Look closely and you'll see that it's not just altitude. Obesity concentrates in river valleys, and the larger the watershed, the higher the obesity rate in the lower reaches of the river. 

Fat doesn't flow downhill in continent-sized watersheds, and neither do sugar or carbohydrates -- but industrial pollution does. 

That's the possibility that this paper proposes:  that some common, persistent industrial pollutant which is present in groundwater has, as a side effect, weight gain in human and animal subjects. The Ludwin-Peerys have done a fine job of investigative epidemiology in their paper, and show that a link between obesity and industrial pollution is the one theory that accounts for the facts. If they're right, the habit of treating the biosphere as a dumpster for chemical wastes may have imposed a cost on society as a whole that nobody's yet taken into account. (Unless -- and whisper this -- the corporations in question have known about this all along, as they knew about the health consequences of tobacco smoking, and kept it secret...) 

I expect this paper and the theory it presents to be deep-sixed if the corporate establishment can possibly do so, and denounced in the most shrill tones possible if that effort fails. That being the case, dear reader, you might consider downloading a copy, stashing it somewhere, and taking its ideas into account in your assessments of the future. 

Comments

[drhooves]

There's a lot of variables in the mix, but the map seems to correlate somewhat with the popularity of fried foods in the south and southeast. The first thought that came to mind was where the fast food outlets are, because they began to spread like weeds in the 1980s, and we know the change from deep frying in natural animal fats to vegetable oils increased about that time as well.

Interesting study. The diets of Americans and the relationship to processed foods also comes into the mix, as the cheaper-to-make/more-profit-to-be-had carb loaded products also started coming on in the 1980s, inline with the faster, on-the-go/no-time-to-cook lifestyles of Americans.

[mollari]

I also wonder about fast food: given that they design the food to be addictive, I suspect that part of that is by messing with leptin to make sure that you are hungry, and by extension causing weight issues.

[(Anonymous)]

I unintentionally lost a little over 30 pounds in a few months after completely cutting out almost all processed foods, so the possibility of a link there seems quite plausible to me!

[ecosophia]

Fried foods are just as popular in the Rocky Mountain states, which have much lower rates of obesity. You might consider reading the study -- it deals with this and the other standard theories, in rather some detail.