Environment
Pollution can make you fat
Children exposed to pesticide in womb twice as likely to be overweight, refuting idea of sole personal responsibility. Geoffrey Lean reports. Sunday, 7 September 2008
Pollution can make children fat, startling new research shows. A groundbreaking Spanish study indicates that exposure to a range of common chemicals before birth sets up a baby to grow up stout, thus helping to drive the worldwide obesity epidemic. The results of the study, just published – the first to link chemical contamination in the womb with one of the developing world’s greatest and fastest-growing health crises – carry huge potential implications for public policy around the globe. They undermine recent strictures from the Conservative leader, David Cameron, that blame solely the obese for their own condition. Read more here