Childhood Obesity Linked To Air Pollution From Vehicles (theguardian.com) 166
Early exposure to air pollution from vehicles increases the risk of children becoming obese, new research has found. From a report: High levels of nitrogen dioxide, which is emitted by diesel engines, in the first year of life led to significantly faster weight gain later, the scientists found. Other pollutants produced by road traffic have also been linked to obesity in children by recent studies. Nitrogen dioxide pollution is at illegal levels in most urban areas in the UK and the government has lost three times in the high court over the inadequacy of its plans. The pollutant also plagues many cities in Europe and around the world. "We would urge parents to be mindful where their young children spend their time, especially considering if those areas are near major roads," said Jeniffer Kim, at the University of Southern California, who led the new research. "The first year of life is a period of rapid development of various systems in the body [and] may prime the body's future development." The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed last Monday that 90% of the world's children are breathing unsafe air, a situation described as "inexcusable" by the WHO's head. Concern over the impact of toxic air on children's health is rising as research reveals serious long-term damage to both their physical and mental health.
and ... and ... (Score:2, Informative)
and eating too much. probably more the fault.
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and eating too much. probably more the fault.
How dare you accuse those who should be! You must be some kind of racist.
Personal accountability was deemed unethical and immoral. Seems it doesn't help move #PerpetualVictims forward towards their special flavor of "progress".
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I don't know where you got your hard on for "nobody is personally accountable these days and the problem is always that" but it's not emotionally healthy or mature and says a lot more about you than any supposed wisdom you think you might have.
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I think you may have been missing things....these days EVERYONE is trying to lay claim to professional victim-hood.
Nothing is "your" fault....it is the fault of xyz, or this race or gender or society in general.
It is always someone else's fault and it is up to soci
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I don't know where you got your hard on for "nobody is personally accountable these days and the problem is always that" but it's not emotionally healthy or mature and says a lot more about you than any supposed wisdom you think you might have.
Personal accountability is one of those things that tends to affect a shitload of things in your life, both good and bad. And obesity is overwhelmingly attributed to personal decisions, so my theory is hardly delusional. No it's not "always" that. In this case, it's about 95% that.
That said, perhaps we should look at TFA to see what kind of crisis this actually is:
"...by age 10, children suffering high early exposure were almost 1kg heavier on average than those with low exposure."
Today, over 30% of children aged 2 - 19 are overweight or obese, and that's before you account for a whopping one kilogram difference by age
Re: I think I've pointed this out on this forum be (Score:1)
Yeah, science found that other people are forcing you to eat. Sure it did.
This article is crap. I've been to places where the diesel fumes in the air are only slightly less anoying than the smell of raw sewage and burning garbage. Places where the particulate count on a good day makes Los Angeles air seem absolutely pristine in comparison. This article would have us believe that their obesity rates should be off the charts, and yet the number of fat people I saw in any given day could be counted on the
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Meanwhile there's all those people getting the flu because they breath too much.
If they'd just man up and hold their breath when they're in public they wouldn't get sick.
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and eating too much. probably more the fault.
No.
The cause of obesity is the body storing fat beyond 20% of the body weight
Nobody got fat eating too much celery.
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1. Calories digested - calories burned = fat.
Incidentally...
2. Correlation <> causation.
So cars are not producing .... (Score:3)
High Fructose Corn Syrup? Make since given the ethanol added.
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correction ....So cars are now......
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Or could it be that poor people are fatter, and poor people also happen to live in more polluted areas? Correlation, causality,...
Another random correlation (Score:1)
I could swear that people are just looking at http://tylervigen.com/spurious... [tylervigen.com] for ideas to make new headlines with.
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Just my 2 cents
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I wondered if there was something like kids in rural areas are more likely to play outside than those in urban environments.
Obesity is higher in rural areas [cdc.gov].
Perhaps rural kids are LESS likely to play outside, since an urban park full of other kids is a nicer place to play than a rural cornfield.
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Would it cause an economic disaster?
Not in America. Due to the fracking revolution, America is roughly self-sufficient in oil. So every extra dollar that a Californian pays for gas is extra money into the pocket of an oil field worker in west Texas. There will be regional shifts in income, but they net to zero.
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So, what's wrong with this graph, which says imports are around 7 million barrels/day ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Said it before (Score:2)
Because the oil business is complicated. The US imports and exports oil. It is also has one of the largest oil refining industries on the planet. Not all oil is the same, so refineries will often get oil from multiple sources and then mix it together to make it easier to refine.
When you take into account both imports and exports, the net difference is about 3.7 million barrels per day imported into the US. Consumption is at about 20 million barrels per day, so the imports are still a significant chunk of
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Because the oil business is complicated. The US imports and exports oil. It is also has one of the largest oil refining industries on the planet. Not all oil is the same, so refineries will often get oil from multiple sources and then mix it together to make it easier to refine.
When you take into account both imports and exports, the net difference is about 3.7 million barrels per day imported into the US. Consumption is at about 20 million barrels per day, so the imports are still a significant chunk of that. The main reason that the US is a net importer rather than a net exporter is the low price of oil on the global markets; as long as the price remains low, many of the American oil fields cannot be profitably operated. If the price went up significantly it would not be long before the US became a net exporter.
Exactly this. Fracking has made the USA the home of low cost Natural Gas and re-vitalized the production of crude coming from existing well bores. But prices are so cheap right now that it's still not worth spending the money to produce crude, so it sits in the ground, waiting for it to become economic to recover.
When Oil was above $100 bbl a lot of capacity was developed that now sits idle. It's just waiting for the day it's worth pumping. I'm guessing we will need it within a decade or so, barring some
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It's a lovely graph but it ends in 2012.
Here's one that has a few extra years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sunspots (Score:2, Insightful)
sunspots have risen too.
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Have they?
I was under the distinct impression that sunspots where unexpectedly low in number. Not a Maunder Minimum, but it has been very disruptive to HF radio propagation as a lack of sunspots thins out the ionosphere and drives the MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) down. The lower bands are *really* impacted by impulse noise (lighting, arching and other very loud RF sources) and for ham radio operators stuffs a lot of us in very small and narrow portions of the 75 and 40 meter bands.
...with likely causation (Score:3)
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I could swear that people are just looking at http://tylervigen.com/spurious... [tylervigen.com] for ideas to make new headlines with.
Yeah, I grew up less than a quarter mile from one of the major city highways and about a half a mile from the other major freeway (both feeding a city pop around 200k). When I started college I was 5'9" and 115 pounds (male, so more than a little skinny), since I left home I'm a more healthy weight but far from any overweight category in my late 30s. So am I just an outlier in this study (yeah I know, one data point out of 7.5 billion and all that...)?
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Yeah, I grew up less than a quarter mile from one of the major city highways and about a half a mile from the other major freeway (both feeding a city pop around 200k). When I started college I was 5'9" and 115 pounds (male, so more than a little skinny), since I left home I'm a more healthy weight but far from any overweight category in my late 30s. So am I just an outlier in this study (yeah I know, one data point out of 7.5 billion and all that...)?
I'm guessing you didn't take any sociological or statistics classes in college? Bell curves, how do they work!?
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First of all, thanks for using the correct term Person of Shit and not the racist Shit Person.
Second of all, I've read what you wrote as something sarcastic. "I grew up near XYZ and I'm fine, I must be a statistical outlier or something?" can be read as ridiculing the premise. My apologies.
When read as intended I would have ignored it because it is banal and doesn't add to the conversion. Sorry for the derail.
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I could swear that people are just looking at http://tylervigen.com/spurious... [tylervigen.com] for ideas to make new headlines with.
I dunno, I believe the divorce/margarine one. Seems like a clear correlation.
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Now plot those against rentals of 'Last Tango In Paris'.
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No idea why you were downmodded.
Key in these cases is always what the researches corrected for. In this case they are:
"age, sex, race/ethnicity, parental education, Spanish questionnaire, and later childhood near-road NOx exposure"
( https://ehjournal.biomedcentra... [biomedcentral.com] )
That is a pretty paltry list of possible other causes.
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Wow. You can always tell when it's an election year.
This makes no sense. (Score:2, Insightful)
Pollution standards are far stricter than they used to be, so we should be seeing a decrease in obesity if this is such a major factor.
These are just environmental activists who are trying to exploit "intersectionality" with the well-publicised obesity epidemic, so as to promote their war on mankind's industrialisation.
You'll never convince mankind to tear down its hard-won development. Make better machines, or STFU.
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Per device it might be generating less. But there are more devices. ...and they're made by VW...and clean coal.
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Re:This makes no sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on whether our pollution standards happen to target the chemicals
They do. Catalytic converters specifically target nitrogen oxides, and NO2 levels have fallen dramatically [epa.gov] over the last 20 years.
Has there been a corresponding decrease in childhood obesity? No.
To be fair, older cars produce much more NO2 than newer models, so kids in low income neighborhoods are more likely to have higher NO2 exposure, and are more likely to be obese. But even in low income areas, NO2 levels have fallen, with no corresponding decrease in childhood obesity.
My car's 25 years old (Score:2)
We've lowered the rate at which things get worse, but we haven't stopped making them worse. I'll take that over doing nothing, but I'd kill for functional public transportation (and no, sacrificing 4 hours out of my day is not "function". I swear, buddy of mine was convinced there was a bus stop rig
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IMO soda's made the most sense. I was born in 71. I watched the proliferation of soda unfold. I watched the pepsi challenge and all the free 12 packs in just about every giveaway. I remember the first time going to a restaurant that gave free refills on soda. To a kid thats like giving unlimited candy at a candy store.
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no no. We need less reliable cars so that kids can learn to "push" them when they break down.
Problem solved: Fewer running cars is less pollution. And more physical exercise. win-win.
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Makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish we could get the environmentalist crowd to stop banging on about shaving whales and talk more about stuff like this.
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Really though, you don't need extensive exercise to lose weight, just better eating habits. I dropped 30 lbs. a few years back just by cutting out unnecessary snack foods and other crap without doing additional high-intensity exercise. It's much easier not to put an additional 600 calories into your body than it is to burn that 600 calories (on top of what you already do) off later.
You don't need excessive exercise (Score:2)
It's just an example (Score:2)
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you want to shave whales? Do they even have any hair?
Yes. Whales have hair [whalefacts.org].
Young whales of many species are born with some hair, and lose it before adulthood. Others keep a bit of hair into adulthood.
Shaving them is difficult, because you have to train them to keep their head above water so the shaving cream doesn't wash off.
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Maybe it was enough to finish off the really fat bastards who were already out of breath?
Sources of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide (Score:2)
Sources of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide:
https://www3.epa.gov/region1/airquality/images/nox.gif [epa.gov]
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If it is concentrated more in the home where someone lives gaining heat from any combustion source tuned incorrectly then your pie chart is irrelevant. It needs to be sampled at the dwelling
Indoor sources don't burn hot enough to produce nitrogen oxides.
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??
They're blaming nitrogen dioxide. Nitrogen dioxide is not CO2.
Re:There'a a very simple reason for the trend... (Score:4, Insightful)
The subjects are ingesting more calories than their bodies need. That's why they become obese. It's that simple.
Yes, everybody knows that. The question is what are all the things that lead people to ingest more calories than they need, and if certain kinds of pollution may play a part in that.
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Exactly. Everyone know how you get fat, this looks at why
It could be Chemical X inhibits vitamin intake, causing people to eat more to compensate. Chemical X might cause depression, which in a population can lead to overeating as a mechanism to cope. Chemical X might inhibit the ability to feel full. Chemical X could make people less inclined to exercise.
Heck, it could be "cars produce Chemical X, more cars more Chemical X, more cars the less parents let their kids out to play, less play time early in life
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false model, since manure burns. all calories taken in are not used. since all calories not used, some food types might cause obsesity compared to others.
high fat high protein diet == low obsesity
high carb diet == obsesity
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Manure burns because cellulose is very hard to digest.
high fat high protein diet == low obsesity
That's mostly because people eat less on such a diet. It makes you feel full for longer. Try eating a block of cheese, and then watch your poop the next day. Most likely it is perfectly normal, indicating that pretty much all of the fat was absorbed.
high carb diet == obsesity
Also not true. Plenty of people around the world eat (or ate) a high carb diet and are perfectly lean.
The things that make you fat are usually foods that are both sweet and fat. Try eating a bowl of plain su
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nope, you can eat a diet of no cellulose and feces will still burn.
plain cream? I eat greek yogurt with no flavoring.
nope, historically people did NOT eat a high carb diet, look it up. agriculture with grains are a recent thing.
as for eating a bowl of plain sugar, plenty of people essentially are doing that with "breakfast cereal", junk food snacks (that go to sugar), soda pop (liquid sugar with flavoring), etc.
running your blood sugar high will cause insulin resistance and obesity
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Agriculture with grains has been there for all of history.
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So what? Recorded history is only 5,000 years and agriculture 12,000. Tiny amount of the 200,000 years of modern humans have been around. Not what we're supposed to be eating.
Re:There'a a very simple reason for the trend... (Score:5, Interesting)
The subjects are ingesting more calories than their bodies need. That's why they become obese. It's that simple.
This is just stating the obvious while explaining nothing.
Of course fat people eat more. But WHY do some people eat more than others? And why have obesity rates TRIPLED since the 1980s? And why is there a huge disparity in obesity rates between different income levels and different ethnicities? And why have obesity rates soared in some countries, while barely changing in others?
Meaningless tautologies like "people are fat because they eat more" explains none of that.
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Of course fat people eat more.
Not awlays. Be careful here...
But WHY do some people eat more than others?
Because food is cheaper than ever before...
And why have obesity rates TRIPLED since the 1980s?
See above; plus the increased drinking of sugars and sodas since the 80s.
And why is there a huge disparity in obesity rates between different income levels and different ethnicities?
All of the above; plus, it depends on where these ethnic people are found. Black Africans in East Africa are of the "thin build." Their "cohorts" in the USA for example are primarily obese. Sad but true. Those in Africa consume less to no processed foods, eat generally less and are more physically active.
And why have obesity rates soared in some countries, while barely changing in others?
It's soared in "rich" countries because of the above and the
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Because food is cheaper than ever before...
Yet obesity is worst in people that can afford the least food. And obesity rates have soared in some poor countries with income levels far below the level where they were when obesity started to climb in the US. And obesity failed to rise in some countries where food became dramatically more affordable.
The big decline in food prices happened in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Yet there was a negligible increase in obesity during that time. Then in the early 1980s, obesity rates began to climb dramatically.
Black Africans in East Africa are of the "thin build." Their "cohorts" in the USA for example are primarily obese.
Very
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just like certain groups are more likely to get diabetes than others. Diabetes is pretty rampant in native american tribes. There's a lot of us with some amount of native american genetics in our blood. Obviously the excessive sitting we do, compared to 50yrs ago, only exacerbates a preexisting condition.
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There is this perpetual challenge that humans have to combat the desire to believe or need that problems only have one cause.
It's emotional and intellectual. Consider yourself an excellent example of the problem.
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I would agree with you except I already know that after pregnancy women can experience varying side effects that cause issues with weight gain and loss out side of the expected results of diet and exercise. Although that has nothing to do with childhood obesity conditions like gastro intestinal hyperpermeability and hypothyroidism do exist.
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Nope, not that simple:
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
Same diet, different gut bacteria - one group gets fat, the other stays lean.
The old (calories in - calories burned) model is overly simplistic and ignores a couple decades of research that shows that obesity is more than just a willpower deficit.
Well, of course. (Score:1)
The more cars are around, the less children are walking.
When a child has to walk or bike to school it is less likely to be obese than when it's driven by soccer mom in her SUV.
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When a child has to walk or bike to school it is less likely to be obese than when it's driven by soccer mom in her SUV.
Eh ... if said child is being driven to soccer, I'm not sure that's actually true ...
Eat Less Tailpipe (Score:2)
I advise all my children not to eat anything that comes out of the exhaust pipe of a car.
BS (Score:1)
In first world countries these "scientists" might think this is plausible but as soon as you include a bunch of third world countries this is BS.
You can go to highly polluted cities in third world counties and guess what, the vast majority of all people are skinny. You can go to the countryside both polluted and not polluted and guess what, most people are skinny.
And these people could over-indulge on food if they wanted to, they just don't.
No, the answer is social acceptance (how "okay" is it to be fat in
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That is easy: the diesel engines that smoke heavily burn at low temperatures, leaving lots of unburned carbon. The oxides of nitrogen are produced by burning the nitrogen in the air, not diesel. This only became a problem after diesel engines were modified to run hotter reduce the carbon dioxide. To create lots of oxides of nitrogen, the engines have to run seri
Childhood obesity linked to... (Score:5, Informative)
Childhood obesity linked to antibiotics [ajc.com]
Childhood obesity linked to hip disease in adolescence [indianexpress.com]
Childhood obesity linked to More Junk Food Ads [usnews.com]
Childhood obesity linked to poverty, parenting style [sciencedaily.com] Childhood Obesity Linked to a Mother's Weight Gain in Pregnancy [usnews.com]
Childhood Obesity Linked to lakc of sleep [go.com]
Childhood obesity linked to eating food from animals treated with antibiotics [scmp.com]
Childhood obesity linked to Mutant Gean [telegraph.co.uk]
It's almost as if the world is a complex place (Score:2)
Naw, little porkers just need to eat less, amiright?
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fucking excellent response! you didnt state any opinions, just the insanity of 'WE HAVE THE ANSWER NOW!' type articles. It reminds me how many times they flipped their stance on eggs.
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WE HAVE THE ANSWER NOW! type articles
They are the bane of science. Note that 'linked to' just implies the correlation, not the causation. It goes south when the retarded 'science reporters' say things such as 'High levels of nitrogen dioxide, which is emitted by diesel engines, in the first year of life led to significantly faster weight gain later, the scientists found'.
That implies causation, something never done in the original paper ( https://ehjournal.biomedcentra... [biomedcentral.com] ).
It reminds me how many times they flipped their stance on eggs.
Who flipped their stance, exactly?
It wasn't the scientists. It was the
Right (Score:4, Insightful)
....because Nairobi street kids are famously obese?
"...The scientists took a series of other factors into account, including gender, ethnicity and parental education, and think it is unlikely that variations in diet could explain the strong link found...."
I'd suspect confounding factors like poverty, urbanization, and THOSE impacts on peoples' diets in the early years of life (or the diets of their nursing mothers) before I'd point a finger at the trucks driving by.
Don't get me wrong, I think early childhood development is probably stunted by particulates, NOx, etc *particularly* from diesel vehicles, but I think this study is merely finding correlation.
What a joke! (Score:5, Insightful)
re: So what role does government have, here? (Score:2)
I don't disagree with your premise. We have way too much convenient, easily accessible (and tasty!) food that has a lot of carbs and sugar in it.
What I have a problem with is the idea it's government's job to step in, playing the role of parent, to force people to make "better food choices" by punishing people offering the less healthy options that are so popular.
Heck, I know I eat way too much sugary and processed food, myself. But I wouldn't be happy at all if my government outlawed the stuff I'm buying o
Dude they did that in the 60s (Score:2)
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LOL (Score:2)
Paint me skeptical, but not with lead paint (Score:2)
It appears they didn't actually check die
Junk Science (Score:2)
It's junk science like this that helps fuel the anti-science sentiment that's all too popular these days...
Lightning ... (Score:2)
Might as well try to ban water because kids drown in it.
Not for long (Score:2)
Not for long, thanks to that lovely Mr Farage. He's always so nicely turned out, isn't he?
We'll breathe whatever we want! Hydrogen chloride, benzene, ozone. That'll stick it to the barmy bureau belgocrats!
Repeat after me: Correlation is not Causality (Score:1)
My first thought reading the title (Score:2)
What surprise.... (Score:2)
So, blaming something else seems to do the trick!