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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.
Do you have any idea how much carbon I've sequestered in fat? Get off my roly poly back.
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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.
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.