Are the products used to build our buildings also making us fat? Are our diet sodas giving us cancer?
Executive Summary
FIRST ARTICLE OF A SERIES. There's more scientific evidence that chemical compounds in building materials and plastics can be linked to obesity than that artificial sweeteners can be linked to cancer, according to executives from Praedicat. Here, they explain the science suggesting that Bisphenol A, dibutyltin and diethylene glycol dibenzoate may be obesogens—science exploring the impact of these chemicals on the appetite control functions of adipose tissue.As though it isn’t hard enough to watch our diets, as insurers we have to worry about what it all means for liability emerging risk too. We can help with the emerging risk, but we have to leave the dieting to you.
Obesity is on the rise across the developed world. Until recently, most of us had assumed that was because we kept eating “unhealthy” foods and eating too much overall. In the United States, after a brief pause, childhood obesity has begun rising again, despite some efforts to improve diet. Research has been emerging that suggests another likely culprit: chemical exposures.
Scientists coined the term “obesogen” to describe chemicals that seem to result in increased risk of obesity. Might these chemicals result in liability for causing the obesity epidemic?
