The eco-entrepreneurial tipping point for Cristofer Smith came in 2004 after his beloved younger sister, Jill, passed from ovarian cancer. Jill was a health and fitness aficionado who followed an organic food diet and there was no family history. It didn’t make any sense to Cris so he asked Jill’s doctor what could have caused her cancer. The doctor named environmental toxins as the most likely causative factor.

A successful entrepreneur in the activewear industry, for 16 years, Cris had been using the standard petrochemical-based fabrics in his apparel manufacturing. Since the skin is our largest organ and is directly exposed to contact with chemicals in clothing, water and air, what comes in contact with your body is important. The quest for non-toxic alternatives led Cris to examine every aspect of his manufacturing processes and product life cycle. He dove headfirst into an intense eighteen-month journey of research, development and innovation to create a high-performance organic bamboo fabric. In 2008, his latest company, Green Apple Active, was born, dedicated to completely eco-friendly non-toxic manufacturing processes and fabrics.

Innovation Plus Performance Throughout Product Lifecycle

On a continual path of improvement, this eco-fashion innovator refuses to compromise on final product or manufacturing processes. This commitment has led Cris Smith to develop a patented bamboo knit fabric for his high performance active wear that is soft, breathable, moisture-wicking, quick drying and anti-microbial with thermal cooling properties. Every step of the product lifecycle is eco-friendly: from the nano-technology that turns organic bamboo into a micro-fiber knit, to the non-toxic water-based dyes and printing, from the soy-ink recycled compostable tags attached with bamboo string to the corn starch plastic packaging for shipping, through to its final biodegradable end.

Cris is on a bamboo crusade. Bamboo requires no pesticides or fertilizer and little water to thrive in a variety of climate zones, is amazingly fast growing (with some species growing several feet in a day), prevents soil erosion and does a great job of sequestering carbon dioxide. As a renewable resource for construction, it’s unbeatable for strength and durability.

Cristofer Smith’s non-toxic sustainable initiatives are fueled by his keen sense of responsibility to future generations, and also by his mission to offer the most comfortable, best performing organic yoga and activewear to the current generation of athletes, yoga practitioners and fitness enthusiasts.

Advice For Consumers

Cris advises consumers to read apparel labels carefully and look for certifications and ratings on manufacturer’s websites. What makes a piece of clothing eco-friendly? Look out for “greenwashing.” Are they making claims when using only 2%-10% organic fiber or are the clothes truly green and clean with over 90% of the fabric made of organic materials? How are they dying and printing the fabric, with toxic oil-based dyes and inks? Demand transparency about certifications and manufacturing processes throughout every stage of the product lifecycle. Especially look for the GOTS-certified brands (Global Organic Textile Standards).

Resources:

Global Organic Textile Standard

Ethical Fashion Forum

Organic Clothing” Can You Read Between the Lines on the Tag

OEKO-TEX

The introduction of mobile weather forecasting equipment, like this satellite dish hooked up to a family's residence, promises to reduce the threat and damage from severe winters. Photo courtesy Ronnie Vernooy

Technology Comes to the Steppes

2010 was a rough year on the Mongolian steppe for the country’s herders. That year, an extremely cold winter struck, known locally as a dzud, wiping out 9 million animals, or 20 percent of the national herd in a country where livestock continues to be central to herders’ livelihoods and play a vital role in the national economy. The freezing temperatures of minus 50 Celsius were the worst in living memory, although the effects of climate change have been eating steadily into the lives of Mongolia’s herdsmen for several years. Along with the degradation of the steppe’s fragile grasslands through overgrazing, and the rapid societal change that comes with globalization, the millennia-old way of life on the steppes is under threat.¹ This perfect storm has already prompted innovation among Mongolian herders, such as the practice known as co-management in which herder groups and government agencies band together to husband the local resources.² However, weather vagaries and calamities continue to challenge herders. The dzud of 2010 came as a surprise due to the lack of local weather forecasts. Many herders were forced to leave the land for good and join the growing pool of the economically displaced in Mongolia’s capital, Ulanbaatar. Others vowed to struggle on, motivated by the arrival of a new weather forecasting system that promises to bring a degree of security to life on the steppe, and with it a technological revolution.

In the devastating aftermath of the dzud of 2009–2010, the Mongolian government requested international donor agencies to provide US$18.15 million in the form of emergency and post-dzud recovery support. The government itself allocated more than $4 million during the winter months for immediate relief.³ As the herders struggled to rebuild their lives and count their losses, the thoughts of many communities turned to longer-term solutions.

The winter of 2010 in Mongolia was one of the harshest in living memory. Many herders along the steppe abandoned their traditional livelihoods, packed up, and drove to settle in the city. Photo courtesy Ronnie Vernooy

Herders for long have expressed the need for more localized weather information. But until 2010, Mongolia did not have a localized weather forecasting system. NAMEM, Mongolia’s National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring, provides forecasts up to the sum (district) level through TV and radio channels, but does not have the capacity to provide community-level forecasts, which are most relevant to herders. There is wide variability of community-level conditions due to the mountainous terrain in many regions, with marked temperature, rain, snowfall, and wind-speed differences.

Researchers and meteorologists working in Mongolia had been thinking for some time about how to respond to the herders’ demand, but had not been able to come up with a concrete proposal. That changed when an opportunity arose for Hijaba Ykhanbai and me to team up with Wang Xiaoli, a researcher from China then working for the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES) based in Bangkok, Thailand. RIMES is an organization affiliated with the United Nations that has a capacity to provide localized weather forecasts. In 2010 the three of us put together a team of researchers, meteorologists, and herders led by a local nongovernmental organization known as JASIL. The group decided to provide daily email or SMS blasts providing location-specific weather forecasts for a number of pilot sites.⁴

In October 2010 the team initiated the process of introducing their plan to three different communities representing different ecological niches. Community members from Ikhbulag, a steppe- and forest-region, were the first to identify locally adapted weather forecast needs, which included a three-day forecast. Herders use this 72-hour time span to plan and adjust their daily activities such as choice of pastures, hours of grazing, and time of milking. The key question then was how to send and distribute the information. Mobile phone density in Mongolia has surpassed one hundred percent: in Ulaanbaatar, many people own more than one mobile phone, loading each one with a different simcard according to particular rates offered by the major communication companies. In the rural areas, however, connectivity remains a problem, in particular in the more remote mountainous areas. In times of bad weather, communication interruptions are frequent.

The most striking feature is that they [the herders] have been able to improve their decision making for key livelihood activities throughout the year given seasonal variability.

One herder from Ikhbulag remarked after the 2009–2010 dzud, “During the last dzud, we could not contact the sum[district] governor or anyone else and ask for help. Our mobile signal is very limited. In some areas, only on the highest mountain top is there a signal, but in winter we are not able to climb up.” After careful consideration of Internet information and communication technology (ICT) possibilities, the annual calendar of herder movements, and local geographic conditions, the team designed the first locally adapted data transmission setup. For each of the three pilot sites, a particular setup was designed and tested. The team studied an earlier example of an ICT-system from the Gobi region and made good use of its lessons learned.⁵ Notably, the team adopted the use of a single, fixed phone to serve as a community-level transmission station. A single herder with access to the phone distributes the information around the community by phone, where possible, or using the traditional method of going on horseback. The herder also measures and records local weather variables in a community weather logbook. This recording serves to verify the weather forecasts produced by RIMES, while also beginning to establish a historical record of community-level weather data.

In all three sites, herders are making good use of the weather forecasts, both at household and group levels. The most striking feature is that they have been able to improve their decision making for key livelihood activities throughout the year given seasonal variability. Herders have made multiple uses of the forecasts.⁶ Solongo, a herder from Lun sum, gives a few examples: “We use the forecasts for the timing of pasture rotation, planting and harvesting of crops, making hay and fodder, and our seasonal movements.”

But not only is the weather the news of the day. Herders have increased the use of the communication system to exchange information more frequently with others, to more efficiently organize children going to school, coordinate travel to the sum center and other places, and obtain information about the prices of goods in the sum center or even as far away as the capital. For example, herders were able to remain informed about the price changes of horse milk, a product with a very high demand in certain months of the year. Selling horse milk is for many families a key source of income.

Herders in the pilot sites reported a significant reduction of animal losses, with many reporting zero losses, in the past winter and spring months. This could be partly explained by the milder weather conditions as compared to the 2009–2010 winter, as well as a generally improved level of preparedness, which has been observed in many regions of the country.⁷ But herders in all three sites also attribute the much improved survival rates to the use of the localized weather forecasts.⁸ Herders in the pilot sites have followed the example of herders elsewhere in the country by preparing Climate Risk Management Plans using NAMEM’s seasonal forecasts plus localized weather forecasts.

Forecast data is shared across villages. Pictured here, Dr. Ykhanbai (center) debriefs a district-level governor. Photo courtesy Ronnie Vernooy

The results have laid the foundation for a national Mongolian system that can greatly improve the livelihoods of herders through more precise ex ante decision making and planning, and also generate huge savings in terms of avoiding or reducing ex post disaster time, efforts, and expenses. From a technological perspective, the new delivery systems do not require much maintenance, other than care and regular maintenance of the ICTs and weather measurement equipment. Of course, keeping the systems up and running also requires the timely payment of Internet and telephone bills by all actors involved. Organizationally, herders seem very capable of continuing the new systems. In fact, they have already begun, on their own, to expand the weather forecasting system to neighboring herders. They have also, as an unintended consequence, intensified the use of mobile and fixed phones, which must be good news for the telecommunication companies that are providing the services.

According to Mongolian ICT specialists, it is foreseen that within five to 10 years from now many herders will be able to purchase improved mobile phones with the capacity to connect to the Internet. Considering this future scenario, the core of the service delivery system could become Internet based. Then, there will be no more need to climb to the highest mountaintop for a phone call to the local governor to find out if another climate change disaster is about to strike.

Acknowledgment

The initiative described here was supported by a national program called Development Research to Empower All Mongolians through Information Communication Technology (DREAM IT). DREAM IT received funding and technical support from the International Development Research Centre of Canada.

References

1. Vernooy, R. How Mongolian herders are transforming nomadic pastoralism. Solutions [online] 2, 82–87 (2011).www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/983.
2. Ykhanbai, H, ed. Community-Based Co-management of Natural Resources in Mongolia: Ten Years of Experience(ADMON, Ulaanbaatar, 2011).
3. UN Mongolia country team. Mongolia: Dzud appeal. (United Nations, Ulaanbaatar, 2010).
4. Environment and Development Association JASIL. Reading the Weather: Using ICTs for Climate Risk Management and Herders’ Livelihoods Improvement in Mongolia. Project proposal (JASIL, Ulaanbaatar, April 2011).
5. Wang, X & Vernooy, R. Beating storms and droughts: The Erdenedalai weather network in the Mongolia Gobi.Development in Practice 22, 104–109 (2012).
6. Vernooy, R. The herder weather readers of Mongolia. Reading the Weather: Using ICTs for Climate Risk Management and Herders’ Livelihoods Improvement in Mongolia. Project evaluation report for the DREAM IT program and for JASIL (JASIL, Ulaanbaatar, August 2012).
7. Vernooy, R & Erdenechuluun, T. Strengthening the disaster mitigation and management system in Mongolia Phase III (April 2008-December 2011) Project MON/08/305. Terminal evaluation report (United Nations Development Program, Ulaanbaatar, 2011).
8. Ykhanbai, H & team. Using ICTs for reading the weather by herders in Mongolia. Sub-project’s findings and recommendations. (JASIL, Ulaanbaatar, July 2012).

This photo from Bilaspur, India came with a message: “We are ready to protect nature with our small hands. Come with me! I am happy because my family is fighting against the sponge iron factory which produces lots of carbon. If we win, it will help save our ecosystem. Please come fight with us!” Courtesy Earth Day

Last year, the Earth Day Network’s environmental campaign reached its goal of A Billion Acts of Green®.

The variety of pledges and acts defy the imagination. Ranging from simple, individual acts like walking to work instead of driving, to large corporate-sponsored campaigns such as with Twentieth Century Fox and Avatar partnership that planted 1,006,639 trees in 16 countries for the Avatar Home Tree Initiative and involved 31,000 volunteers. The City of New Orleans installed 343,829 Efficient Light Bulbs with A Billion Acts of Green®, representing one bulb for each city resident.

This amazing milestone solidifies the campaign’s position as the world’s largest environmental service campaign. With the momentum, the campaign organizers have vowed to keep it going and growing to reach the next billion acts, “channeling the power of A Billion Acts of Green® to move the ball forward on specific, timely issues.”

In 2013, “The Face of Climate Change” is the focus of this Earth Day and around the world, in 192 countries and countless cities, towns and villages, people are celebrating and demonstrating their faith in changing the face of climate change with more acts of green.

On the Earth Day website, the current featured actions include Protect our Clean Air, Recycle Your e-Waste, Restore the Canopy and Go Solar. All the Actions require actions from you, the reader.

On the e-Waste page, you can learn about recycling electronics responsibly. According to Earth Day “more than 50 million tons of electronic waste (e-waste) is generated each year in the U.S. alone and that only 20-25 percent of the waste is responsibly recycled. As a direct consequence, large amounts of hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, and cadmium leach into our air and water, contaminating our communities.”  You can take the pledge to recycle responsibly right on the page.

The Canopy Project asks for help planting 10 million trees in impoverished areas. Watch 14 year old Jaden Smith, actor Will Smith’s son and star of the upcoming movie, After Earth, ask you to help.

“The Canopy Project is trying to plant 10 million trees over the next 5 years… That’s major. We need to get to work.” – Jaden Smith

The Go Solar page is an example of how corporate America is joining with the Billion Acts of Green® campaign to help individual incorporate solar power into their lives with a large donation from each solar installation.

But remember; Acts of Green don’t have to be huge. Consider using your own mug for your morning latte, remember to take your reusable bag to the grocery store and turn off your electronics when you aren’t using them. If we all do these small things this Earth Day and every day, they will add up to the billions of acts of green needed to keep the momentum going  to create a cleaner and safer world for us, our children, their children and beyond.

Professor Wangari Maathai was so much more than the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize. On her birthday, April 01, she will be remembered for her vast achievements and the impact she made on the lives of so many people.

She is revered by many and even after her death in 2011, she remains a role model and leader in the battle for democracy, human rights and environmental conservation. Professor Maathai was the force behind The Greenbelt Movement, which inspired the creation of the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign (now called Plant for the Planet), which by the end of December 2011, had planted more than 12,000,000 trees around the world. She was an avid promoter and defender of women’s rights, creating programs that empowered women in many nations.

Just a year before she passed on, her work and influence gave rise to the creation of the Wangari Maathai Institute of Peace and Environmental Studies on the grounds of the University of Nairobi, with a vision for holistic, transformative experiential learning and community outreach for sustainability.

“It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change.” ~ Professor Wangari Maathai

This belief has spread around the world and is seen in the environmental and human rights protests that have erupted and continue around the world today.

Happy 73rd Birthday, Wangari Maathai.

Earth Hour 2012 Place des Cocotiers Nouméa Nouvelle-Calédonie. Photo courtesy Earth Hour Global under Creative Commons Licence

Earth Hour, an initiative of WWF, will take place tomorrow, Saturday March 23 at 8:30PM across the world.

In a message to the world on the eve of the seventh Earth Hour, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has set the agenda for this year’s hour of inspiration.

“We participate with an undimmed determination to take action on climate change,” he said.

“Everyone has a role to play. Governments need to provide the political will, businesses can contribute solutions, and civil society, especially young people, can mobilise global action.  Together, let’s do our part and shed light on common sense answers for a cleaner, greener world.”

With the impact of climate change and environmental damage being palpably felt in people’s lives in cities and homes across the planet – from major flooding in Jakarta, fires in Australia, smog in China’s cities, to Hurricane Sandy in the USA – the recognition that increasingly extreme weather is harming families, communities and economies has brought the need for action to the forefront of the campaign.

Earth Hour, an initiative of WWF, will take place tomorrow, Saturday March 23 at 8:30PM across the world.

The movement will celebrate environmental outcomes generated by its participants in the last year, including the passing of legislation to protect Russia’s seas from oil pollution after a petition with more than 122,000 signatures was presented to Parliament during WWF-Russia’s I Will If You Will campaign.

The Earth Hour Forest in Uganda was established as a first step to combat deforestation in the country, and the Earth Hour City Challenge is another beyond the hour initiative that recognizes cities taking amazing steps towards a 100% renewable future.

But organizers are pushing for even more action beyond the hour.

“The Earth Hour community has become a powerful force for change, both on local and global scales.  Earth Hour is no longer simply about the symbolic actions of an hour, but the cumulative actions of the global community generating real outcomes for the environment,” said Andy Ridley, CEO and Co-Founder of Earth Hour.

“But it’s also clear that the potential for hundreds of millions of people to take action beyond the hour is extraordinary – we are undoubtedly seeing this begin to happen in a big way,“ he said.

WWF-Russia has just secured more than 100,000 signatures from Russian citizens for their Earth Hour 2013 petition for amendments to the current forest legislation. The petition may be the catalyst to reinstate a ban on industrial logging in protective forests, which make up an area twice the size of France.

In Botswana, former President Mr Festus Mogae has made a four-year commitment to plant one million indigenous trees as part of his ‘I Will If You Will’ challenge and kicked it off by planting 100,000 trees in a severely degraded area in the Southern part of the country called Goodhope.

And in Argentina, Earth Hour organisers and WWF affiliate Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina is mobilizing thousands of participants to help champion the passing of a Senate bill to make Banco Burwood the biggest Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the country. If successful, the 3.4 million-hectare MPA will raise the level of protection of Argentina’s Exclusive Economic Zone from 1 percent to 4 percent.

The UN Headquarters in New York City will join more than 7000 cities and towns in more than 150 countries and territories for Earth Hour 2013, with Palestine, Tunisia, Galapagos, Suriname, French Guyana, St. Helena and Rwanda among those joining the global movement for the first time.

Other landmarks going dark include: Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, Tokyo Tower, Taipei 101, The Petronas Towers, Beijing National Stadium (Bird’s Nest), Marina Bay Sands Singapore, Gateway of India, The Burj Khalifa, The Church of the Nativity (Birthplace of Jesus, Bethlehem), Table Mountain, Dubrovnik City Walls, Eiffel Tower, Avenue Habib Bourguiba, The Acropolis, Tower of Pisa, The Spanish Steps, Brandenburg Gate, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, The UK Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Christ the Redeemer Statue, CN Tower, Las Vegas Strip, Times Square, The Empire State Building, Niagara Falls and more.

For live updates on Earth Hour 2013 on Saturday March 23, go to http://earthhour.org/live

To join the global community head to:

Earth Hour www.earthhour.org
Facebook www.facebook.com/earthhour
Twitter  www.twitter.com/earthhour
YouTube www.YouTube.com/EarthHour
Google+ http://plus.google.com/+EarthHour

Source: Earth Hour

In his first comments about protecting the world’s oceans since becoming Secretary of State, John Kerry spoke to a Washington reception hosted by The Pew Charitable Trusts and urged creation of what would be the globe’s largest marine reserve in Antarctica’s Ross Sea.

Joined by leaders from New Zealand and Australia, Kerry spoke to more than 300 people who gathered at the National Geographic Society for a special screening of the award-winning documentary, “The Last Ocean,” which focuses on the Ross Sea and its rich marine life. Long a champion of protections for oceans and fisheries while in the Senate, Kerry said such work “is a challenge to our commitment to science and facts and what we believe in.”

We are not going to wait for a crisis before we take action – Secretary of State John Kerry

This July a commission of two dozen countries and the European Union will consider creation of a reserve around the Ross Sea and the East Antarctic marine areas in the Southern Ocean. The United States and New Zealand, with support from Australia, are leading the push. Scientists consider the Ross Sea one of the last unspoiled regions on Earth, offering deep opportunities for learning about marine ecosystems. “We are not going to wait for a crisis before we take action,” Kerry said to an audience of environmental advocates and national and international news media.

Pew has supported conservation in the Southern Ocean for two decades and Karen Sack, who directs Pew’s international ocean conservation efforts said, “there are just four months left in which to first strengthen and then secure consensus for the Ross Sea and East Antarctic marine reserves—decisions that would make history.”

New Zealand’s ambassador to the United States and former prime minister, the Right Honorable Mike Moore, who joined Kerry on stage, noted that the size of the proposed reserve would be nearly 9 times larger than his country and three and half times the size of Texas. “This is not a small thing,” he said. “We are proud this proposal is based on quality science.”

Scientists and conservationists have long urged protection for the region and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Bob Carr, told the audience: “We need it.”

He also emphasized the science-based approach in developing the proposed marine reserve and said, “I strongly encourage all members of the commission to support it.”

Source: Pew Environment

This year, Earth Hour is on March 23 at 8:30 pm – wherever you are in the world.

This is the hour when the world goes dark, turning off lights as a symbolic gesture to protect the Blue Marble we call home. Since Earth Hour’s inception in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, where 2.2 million Sydneysiders and 2100 businesses turned off their lights for an hour, this movement has spread to include the more than 151 countries and thousands of states, cities, towns and rural communities that have pledged to go dark this year.

In 2012, the I Will If You Will campaign was launched, with more than 200,000 people accepting a challenge at YouTube.com/EarthHour to share what they would be willing to do to save the planet, and what they’d expect done in return. The campaign continues this year, with thousands more committing to help change the world for the better.

The youTube channel is fun to watch, with the pledges ranging from kiteboarding wearing a panda hat if 1,000 people will commit to using reusable tumblers, to an 8th grade class going paperless if 1,000 people commit to planting a tree and a five-year-old Greek boy, who will give up chocolates for a week if 50 people pledge to green their balconies.

There is still time for you to publicly pledge what you will do to help save Mother Earth. Privately, it’s a pledge we can all make at any time, to take steps to help reduce our impact on the planet.

In this video from Nourish, Dr. Nadine Burke discusses the advantages of eating whole foods – food in its natural state.

On International Women’s Day, Ma Khanyile is a woman to admire.

Gertrude Thokozile (Ma) Khanyile was born in 1940, and lives in Sweetwaters on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Mrs Khanyile looks after her husband and her nine grandchildren.

“I didn’t have money,” she says. “My life before I joined the projects from Wildlands was not that good because we were surviving with pension money and from the food garden that I had.

“I started planting trees in 2009, and in 2010 a boy from Wildlands asked me what I want to buy, he said, ‘What do you want Mama?’ I asked for cement and sand to build my home. Ndlovu, that boy, he came back and said, ‘Granny, I’ve got your cement; I’ve got your sand. The truck is coming next week with 14 bags of sand and cement.’ I was very happy that day. Now I have finished one wall and floor of the new room. I am able to dream big because I know that I can get a lot of things with my trees.”

Mrs Khanyile is also a waste-preneur and because of her hard work and commitment she was rewarded with more equipment to expand her vegetable garden. “The recycling project has made a huge difference in my home and in the community because we have a cleaner area now and the food gardening project is the highlight of my life. I am passionate about planting vegetables because I know I don’t have to go to town and buy food, I can easily get it from my garden, and I can use my pension money for other things we need in the household. Wildlands gave me the chance to plant more in my garden.

“I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy – I don’t know what else I can say, but I’m very happy!”

The Wildlands Conservation Trust Vision:

Working on the philosophical understanding that human well-being is dependent on environmental health, Wildlands has adopted a CEBA (Community Ecosystems Based Adaptation) model as philosophical construct and organising principle for where we work and what we do. CEBA moves beyond the more traditional concept of Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EBA), mainstreaming it into the green economy as an adaptation tool that promotes social inclusiveness and sustainable development. CEBA highlights the interconnectivity between local communities and their supporting ecosystems.

Courtesy of Environmental Health Perspectives

Diabetes and Obesity

Diabetes and obesity are two of the most significant public health issues of our day, and both are major epidemics in the United States and abroad. These conditions are interrelated; obesity has been long recognized as a common precursor to adult-onset (type 2) diabetes, although “adult-onset” is becoming an outdated term. In the United States, the prevalence of obesity among children and adolescents has almost tripled since 1980, and an estimated 12.5 million children and adolescents (16.9%) are considered obese [7]. This trend is also apparent in preschool children 2–5 years of age, a group in which obesity increased from 5% in 1976–1980 to 10.4% in 2007–2008 [7]. One report based on well-child visits at a health maintenance organization in Massachusetts was particularly disturbing: The prevalence of overweight in infants 0–6 months of age almost doubled between 1980 and 2001, from 3.4% to 5.9% [4]. This finding suggests that factors other than changes in physical activity or diet are contributing to these trends, pointing to possible changes in fetal programming.

The most recent estimates of diabetes prevalence in the United States are equally staggering. Based on data from 2005 through 2008, 25.6 million (11.3%) of all people in the United States ≥ 20 years of age have diagnosed or undiagnosed diabetes [1]. Another 35% have prediabetes, a condition in which blood glucose is higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. People with prediabetes have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Weight

Being overweight or obese has been estimated to account for approximately 70% of the cases of type 2 diabetes [2]. However, the etiology of the remaining 30% is unknown. Given the sheer numbers of people with the disease—now estimated globally at 220 million and expected to grow to 366 million by 2030 [10]—it is easy to understand the growing consideration of “nontraditional” risk factors (e.g., environmental chemicals, stress, microbiome) as contributors to these diseases. A growing scientific literature implicating a role for environmental chemical exposures has been developed largely through the funding of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as part of the institute’s broader interest in understanding endocrine-related disorders and the developmental origins of adult disease. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals alter control of adipose tissue development and function, control of food intake, insulin sensitivity, glucose homeostasis, and lipid metabolism [3, 5, 8]. If the exposure occurs during development, the result could possibly be an altered “set point” or sensitivity for developing obesity or diabetes later in life.

The Role of Environmental Exposure

Research addressing the role of environmental chemicals in diabetes and obesity has rapidly expanded in the past several years. Both the May 2010 White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity (2010) [9] and the 31 March 2011 Strategic Plan for NIH Obesity Research [NIH (National Institutes of Health) Obesity Research Task Force 2011] acknowledge the growing science base in this area and cite the need to understand more about the role of environmental exposures as part of future research and prevention strategies.

To help develop such a research strategy, the National Toxicology Program (NTP), with collaboration from the NIEHS intramural and extramural program scientists, organized a state-of-the-science workshop in January 2011 titled “Role of Environmental Chemicals in the Development of Diabetes and Obesity.” The technical background documents assembled for this workshop were extensive, totaling > 500 pages and spanning the range from epidemiological data to high throughput screening results. As an additional scientific resource, approximately 800 main findings from the epidemiological studies of diabetes and childhood obesity have been compiled into a searchable graphing software program. A diverse group of > 150 scientists, including toxicologists, epidemiologists, and bioinformaticists, as well as experts in the pathobiology of diabetes and obesity, attended the meeting to review the existing literature and shape a research strategy.

The review of the collected literature supported the plausibility of certain environmental chemicals acting as “obesogens” or diabetogenic agents. In some cases, the conclusions were based on surprisingly consistent epidemiological associations. With other chemicals or chemical classes, consistency was found in mechanisms of action. We have little appreciation for the extent to which environmental chemical exposures may be influencing obesity and diabetes rates, but it is becoming increasingly clear that overnutrition and a lack of exercise are not the entire story.

The first of a series of articles stemming from the January 2011 workshop appears in this issue of Environmental Health Perspectives [8]. Kristina Thayer, director of the NTP Office of Health Assessment and Translation, other NIEHS staff, and the workshop chair, Michael Gallo (University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School) provide an introduction to the topic and an orientation to the workshop and key outcomes. Upcoming reports will examine the influence of smoking during pregnancy, as well as nicotine and arsenic exposures, on diabetes and obesity outcomes and mechanisms.

References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2011. Diabetes Data & Trends. Available: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/DDTSTRS/default .aspx [accessed 12 December 2011].

2. Eyre H, Kahn R, Robertson RM. 2004. Preventing cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes: a common agenda for the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association. CA Cancer J Clin 54(4):190–207. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE

3. Janesick A, Blumberg B.. 2011. Minireview: PPAR© as the target of obesogens. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol 127(1–2):4–8. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE

4. Kim J, Peterson KE, Scanlon KS, Fitzmaurice GM, Must A, Oken E, et al. 2006. Trends in overweight from 1980 through 2001 among preschool-aged children enrolled in a health maintenance organization. Obesity (Silver Spring) 14(7):1107–1112. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE

5. Nadal A, Alonso-Magdalena P, Soriano S, Quesada I, Ropero AB. 2009. The pancreatic ®-cell as a target of estrogens and xenoestrogens: Implications for blood glucose homeostasis and diabetes. Mol Cell Endocrinol 304(1–2):63–68. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE

6. NIH Obesity Research Task Force 2011. Strategic Plan for NIH Obesity Research. NIH publication no. 11-5493. Available: http://www.obesityresearch.nih.gov/about /strategic-plan.aspx [accessed 12 December 2011].

7. Ogden C, Carroll M 2010. Prevalence of Obesity among Children and Adolescents: United States, Trends 1963-1965 through 2007-2008. Available: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obes ity_child_07_08/obesity_child_07_08.htm [accessed 12 December 2011].

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Linda S. Birnbaum, director of the NIEHS and the NTP, oversees a budget that funds multidisciplinary biomedical research programs and prevention and intervention efforts that encompass training, education, technology transfer, and community outreach. She recently received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Rochester, the distinguished alumna award from the University of Illinois, and was elected to the Institute of Medicine. She is the author of > 700 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, abstracts, and reports. Birnbaum received her M.S. and Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Illinois, Urbana. A board-certified toxicologist, she has served as a federal scientist for more than 32 years, 19 with the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, preceded by 10 years at the NIEHS as a senior staff fellow, a principal investigator, a research microbiologist, and a group leader for the institute’s Chemical Disposition Group.

The author declares she has no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Citation: Birnbaum LS 2012. Is Supersize More than Just Too Much Food? Environ Health Perspect 120:a223-a224. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1205200