Overnutrition is a significant component of food waste and has a large environmental impact

Abstract

Food waste and obesity and overweight conditions are both linked to the unsustainability of current food systems. This article argues that overnutrition should be considered a form of food waste and it provides a first estimation of the quantity of food over-consumed in Italy. This is done by calculating the excess calories consumed by obese and overweight people and converting them into food quantities by comparison with a typical Italian diet. The total quantity of food consumed in excess by Italian citizens due to overnutrition is calculated as 1.553 million tonnes per year, which is comparable to the current national household food waste assessments. The environmental impact arising from production and consumption of this food accounts for 6.15 Mt of CO₂-eq per year, as estimated by a Life Cycle Analysis conducted on the 46 food categories which compose the typical Italian diet. Overnutrition in the South-Islands regions of Italy exerts the largest impact (31.6%), followed by the North-West (26.6%), the Centre (22.2%), and the North-East (19.1%).

Figure 1

Mean individual daily consumption by food category in male and female adults (18–64 years) in the four Italian macro-regions (INRAN-SCAI, 2005–2006). Numbers are expressed in grams per day. Red horizontal lines represent the standard portion sizes for each food category, expressed in grams per day.

Figure 2

Quantity of equivalent food consumed in excess in Italy, in 1 year, due to overnutrition of overweight and obese people in Italy, by macro-region. Numbers are expressed in tonnes per year, and they refer to the whole population of each region. The total food consumed in excess adds up to 1.553 million tonnes of food in the whole country.

Figure 3

Contribution of food categories to overnutrition of overweight and obese people in Italy. The Figure represents the percentage contribution of each food category to the total food consumed in excess in the whole country.

Figure 4

Contribution of food categories to the GHG emissions of Italian macro-regions. The Figure represents the percentage contribution of each food category to the total GHG emissions of the food consumed in excess, in each macro-region of Italy.