Question: Do you think our world will end in 2012? :D

Kate Clancy answered on 14 Jun 2011:

Nope, not worried about this at all! I am worried about the kind of impact we are having on our planet, though, and how that is going to make it harder and harder to live here.

I study how our environment affects our health. Most of my research focuses on physical and psychological stress. It used to be that anthropologists would go to the farthest reaches of the earth to study the most remote populations in order to understand this. These days, the weirdest people I can study are… other Americans! People in developed countries like the US or UK are heavier than ever, and some of the reasons are related to the fact that we don’t move around much and we eat a lot. (There are also important reasons for weight change that have nothing to do with food or exercise, but that’s a whole other topic!)

But in addition to the impact on our bodies, not moving around and eating a lot are both bad for the environment. Using lots of energy to stay in one place (lights on, computer and TV on, etc), or using cars all the time rather than walking or biking, wastes energy. And eating more than the body needs means continuing to create crop yields that overfeed some parts of the world, even while other parts are going hungry.

So for our health, and so that we can actually stay on this planet through 2012 and beyond, I do hope we start taking better care of it!