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The Fuel Cost of Obesity
thecarchik writes "America loves to complain about gas mileage and the cost of gasoline. As it turns out, part of the problem is us. How much does it really matter? A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 1.1 percent increase in self-reported obesity, which translates into extra weight that your vehicle has to haul around. The study estimates that 1 billion extra gallons of fuel were needed to compensate for passenger weight gained between 1960 and 2002."
One key finding was that almost 1 billion gallons of gasoline per year can be attributed to passenger weight gain in non-commercial vehicles between 1960 and 2002--this translates to .7 percent of the total fuel used by passenger vehicles annually.
So they found it had nearly nothing to do with it. Spiffy.
offsetting this by the fuel savings coming from reduced family size. People simply have fewer children on average than they used to.
Wow you really can make numbers say anything you want. Remember that thanks to all the SUV's, the weight of the average car has increased since the 60's, not decreased as you would expect from losing the chassis and moving to a monocoque design.
But hey, let's bash fat people. How about that fat tax?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Less than what the US could save by making sure their tires are properly inflated (1.25 billion). let alone what we could save by cleaning out our trunks, removing our winter bags of sand, or other weight just sitting around in the car. Both are much easier than getting people to lose weight, but I doubt if they are getting done. Good luck on getting people to stop being obese to save an non-detectable part of their gas bill. For that matter, it would probably be easier just to appeal to get them to keep from diving as much (which if they walk or bike would also cut into the obese issue).
I know something that America loves to complain about more than fuel prices. Fat Americans. Get over yourself.
This appears misleading at best. Here's why:
During the time frame from 1960 to now, the average weight of cars has been reduced by one to two TONS. Someone weighing more in a more fuel efficient car LOWERS the amount of fuel used during that same time period. Sure gas mileage took a nose dive when antipollution stuff was first added in the 1970's. But since then, average mileage has gone up. (with the exception of the moms who bought multi-ton SUV's to ferry to the nail salon and pickup kids, instead of letting them ride the bus. And, as to wasting fuel, how much fuel did we use when we allowed lower standards to be used in drilling for oil, resulting in how many millions of barrels lost forever to the US? I know a variety of people who carry their golf clubs ALL the time in their trunk. We don't discuss how much that costs us, or driving kids to numerous after school activities, instead of letting them walk or ride the bike, things which can very easily be changed, we just discuss how much a fat person costs us. I wonder why.
Further:
As the study says, it's self reported.
During that same time period, the definition of obesity has been dramatically changed by the government, lowering the weight levels at which one is considered obese. Therefore more people would self-report being obese. When they first lowered the "normal" weights, 55% of all Americans became overweight by definition. For many people who were not considered by the government to be obese prior to this changing of its weight standard, they became obese overnight. Weight loss programs and weight loss surgery fought to be reimbursable by health insurance, and all too often were successful, making more people use these methods which have less than a 10% success rate over a 5 year time frame.(higher success rates for very short terms are common, leading to weight yo-yo-ing, which has significant negative health impact.) Thus the combination of change of definition of obese, the covering of expensive surgery and expensive weight loss programs, and the resulting yo-yo-ing have led to some higher healthcare costs. Discontinue covering such items that lead to more damage from more weight yo-yoing, and healthcare costs are reduced.
Finally:
Discussing weight has become a national pastime, especially for women. It's rare that I have a conversation longer than a half hour in which an American woman won't tell me how much she has lost, how much she has gained, and how much she had done attempting to lose weight. What a waste of human potential to spend so much time focused on something that contributes nothing to society, other than to help enrich the bank accounts of those selling get skinny quick solutions. When someone espouses waif like existence, watch what their connection to the finances of weight loss is. And notice how many of those waifs are eating disordered. The very thin have significantly increased weight related costs to society.
soapbox off
Do you have any idea how much carbon I've sequestered in fat? Get off my roly poly back.
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This study doesn't take into account fatties laziness. Fatties are more likely to sit in the car with the engine running and air conditioning on full blast cuz they're too fucking fat for the climate they live in. Fatties are more likely to drive to the mailbox because their fat knees can't handle their fat bodies.
America has one of the cheapest fuel prices in the world. Stop complaining. it's about 6-7$ a gallon here.
Adding 42 years worth of data results in big number!
The cost of (relatively) cheap gasoline? War, war, and more war. That cheap gasoline is only cheap because we're willing to bankrupt ourselves to get it.
-kgj
We can melt down all the fatties and use them as bio-diesel.
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
I dont give a rats ass what the study says , I for one am sick and tired of all of these "studies". All it is a way to try to tax us even more. Or a bunch of busy bodies trying to control other peaople and what they can / cant and have to do.
Am I overweight ? None of your damn business.
Do I smoke ? None of your damn business.
Do I eat red meat ? None of your damn business.
Do I drink soda pops ? None of your damn business.
What are my sexual preferences ? None of your damn business.
Did I eat my veggies ? None of your damn business.
Do I exercise ? None of your damn business.
Do I go to church ? None of your damn business.
Do I believe in God ? None of your damn business.
Do I use more internet bandwidth than you do ? None of your damn business.
Do I watch Porn ? None of your damn business.
America used to be a place where you were free to live your life however you wanted to as long as you did not directly interfere with the rights of others.
Now America is a place where your free to live your life however you want as long as it does not some how offend some idiot, no matter how stupid that idiot may be.
Because the government subsidizes corn, so it's cheaper to use than cane/beat sugar... I'm sure there's more than enough politics behind it (and now a national dependence) that it's not going to go away anytime soon.
We've all been forced(?) into consuming HFCS in just about everything from soft drinks to breads. Recently McDs has been selling sweet tea with sugar in it and I've found that if I drink one without eating I tend to get what I can only describe as light headed and I have to eat something to calm it down. I'm sure I have diabetes creeping up on me though. Of course, that's a lot of sugar for one drink so I don't have them often. ;)
Enjoy what you have!
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
You would have to take height into consideration as well, I'm a 6'2 male, I'm always going to weigh more than a healthy 5'8 female and there is nothing I can do about that.
Monstar L
I would imagine that one reason fat guys are fat is precisely because they drive everywhere. Last time I was in California I made the heretical suggstion that we walk the, approx, 1 mile to the beach rather than drive. "No one walks here!" was the reply, so we stuffed the dog into the car to go to the beach to walk the dog and then drove home. Seriously. Closer to home, I see people in the gym running for ages on the treadmill - why didn't they just run to the gym rather than drive? It is madness. Someone did a neat well designed study where they got some office people to use the stairs rather than the lift - this small additional excercise had profound effects in the long term on cholestoerol, chubbiness and just plain feeling good. We seem to be in a lazy world. Personally, I ride my bicycle to work and back (about 8 miles one way), I get there faster than by car in rush hour, I feel good, and just love buzzing past the caged masses stuck in traffic, and there's no problem parking. For sure, the sick and disabled need notorised transport - but why are people allowed to become sick and disabled through laziness? Why isn't there a cure? We can save their lives, reduce their weight, and save fuel.
Although 1B gals sounds like a lot, consider that Wiki says the US alone used 138B of gas in 2006. So saving 1B gals over the course of 20 years globally is a relative drop in the bucket.
Yeah I probably could cycle to work every day for the rest of my life, but I won't since it's just a relative drop in the bucket.
I could replaceall the halogens in my house with energy saving bulbs, but I only use 4kWh which in terms of the entire suburb is just a relative drop in the bucket.
Australia could build a new Nuclear power stations instead of Brown Coal power stations, but with China on the rise it's just a relative drop in the bucket.
Every time I read a comment like yours I realise that people don't get it. There's a finite number of drops in the bucket. Removing one alone does nothing appreciable. But if you start removing many of these tiny drops pretty soon you'll find the bucket is starting to empty. This isn't a 1B saving over 20 years. This is an ADDITIONAL 1B saving over 20 years.
Though admittedly fat people die younger, and may have difficulty breeding so that's probably good for the environment.
Why? You weigh what you weigh
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Mod parent, grandparent up. Over the entire US, sure, 1% amounts to a lot of gas, but 1% is nothing compared with what you can save on a bike. I put 2500 miles/year on mine, displacing about 25-30% of what would ordinarily be driving (and crappy, city-ish driving, too). 1/3 of us live in communities at least as dense as Dutch towns (with 40% ride share), WTF is wrong with us?
Helps with flaky joints, helps with flexibility, too.