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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."
Gonorrhea.
The fuel cost isn't even the biggest problem. Think about the increased wear and tear on the suspension when a fat person drives a car. 99% of cars don't use progressive rated springs, so a fat person compressing the coils just once messes them up for life. Turning a car with a fat person is harder too and stresses out the tie rods and such. I wish more people would just read this thinspirational fatography blog .
It just goes to show, the average human being is not that bright.
In Holland we got even higher prices. was at one point over 3 euro, per LITER... for americans, that is a quarter gallon.
So, what do you think, did SUV sales go UP or DOWN?
Remember, this is in a small cold country where many streets were designed centuries ago and so are very narrow.
Yes, you guessed it. They went UP.
There is a certain type of person who votes for tax cuts then complains about cuts in services, buys the biggest car, then complains it don't fit and costs a fortune in fuel. Wants speed bumps in his road, then complains about speed bumps. Complains about medevac helicopts and ambulances making to much noise, but wants the army to deploy for his twisted angle.
Humanity, if we left it to the average person, we would still be in the trees because getting out would mean giving up the big branch they kicked everyone else off.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If your dick is fat, then probably the rest of you is equally fat. That means that you require more energy to be stuffed into your mouth every day. The energy to produce that edible energy, is probably making sure that you're not the winner against the skinny people in their cars when it comes to pollution.
This is blinging
[...]
As it turns out, part of the problem is us.
[...]
Speak for yourself, White Man.
Yeah, obese people are everywhere in the US today, mostly due to the plastic shite the corporations provide for them to eat. I haven't owned a motor vehicle since 1991 and, guess what? I'm slim & trim from walking and biking.
That's just skirting around the problem, though. In the last couple of decades I've observed a steady trend towards A) larger gas-guzzling vehicles and B) single person occupancy. Americans hold it to be their right (and it is) to drive alone 5 blocks to the supermarket in their huge goddam vehicles. However, if they simply understood the implications of their actions on the environment I feel we'd see far less of it. But instead, the TeeVee has them pissing their britches watching out for murderers, rapists and now terrorists so they will never, ever EVER stop to give someone a ride, even on the hottest or coldest days of the year. On the flip-side, one would be far more inclined to walk to their destination if there were a good chance they'd be offered a ride, as was the case a mere 30 years ago (I remember).
One more thing: I detest BP (and other mega corps) as much as anyone, but blaming them for the destruction of aquatic and wetland habitats and countless rare and valuable species is logically and morally equivalent to blaming Mexico for the US drug problem. The market will work, bringing the supply to where there is the demand, no matter how much imbecile legislation is passed. The problem is the ignorance of the average US citizen. Find some way to fix that and a lot of huge problems simply disappear. I was hopeful that the switch to digital TV would so frustrate a large number of viewers that they would simply give up the tube. That would have had a chance to break the increasingly sophisticated mind control the mega corps have over a vast majority of the US population. Alas, I was wrong and now I and to some degree every inhabitant of this planet are paying the price.
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.