Physician Kevin Patterson has treated patients in the Arctic, in Kandahar and on remote Pacific Islands. He says that Western ideas and the effects of urbanization are making people everywhere in the world both fatter and sicker.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/24/132745785/how-western-diets-are-making-the-world-sick
Almost everything in modern life is designed to waste energy. The whole system evolved on a false premise that petroleum is cheap and plentiful and will be that way forever. The awesome Lisa Margonelli, author of Oil on The Brain and a fellow at the New America Foundation, talks us through the design of a world that completely disregards the perils of oil consumption and how new designs are meant to make us all more content with the mess we’ve made.
From http://invisible99.podbean.com/2010/11/24/99-invisible-11-99-undesigned/