Does the overweight epidemic cause energy consumption? A piece of empirical evidence from the European region

The effect of the overweight epidemic on energy consumption and environmental degradation was investigated for a panel of thirty-one countries from Europe from 1990 to 2016. The quantile via moments approach was used and revealed that the overweight epidemic increases the consumption of energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It does this in two ways. First, overweight increases the consumption of processed foods from multinational food corporations, fast-food chains and multinational supermarket chains. This process impacts the multinational food corporations and farm production positively to attend to the demand for processed foods. This increase impacts the consumption of energy from non-renewable energy sources. Second, overweight reduces physical activities as well as outdoor activities, which increases the intensive use of home appliances and motorised transportation and consequently stimulates the consumption of energy and thus CO2 emissions rise. •The overweight epidemic in 31 European countries increases the consumption of energy.•The overweight increases the use of home appliances and motorised transportation.•The decrease of physical activities by overweight increase the consumption of energy.•The increase in consumption of fossil fuels is caused by the overweight epidemic.•The urbanisation, globalisation, and economic growth causes overweith epidemic.