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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.
ridin' Obese; they hatin'.
Bad summary. 1B gals/year is quotes in the article.
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.
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.
Airlines could do a lot to reduce carbon emissions, and also encourage better public health, by requiring passengers at checkin to stand on a large weighing platform along with their bags, and pay for the total weight. I strenuously object to subsidising the fares of obese people.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
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.
Fuel economy has done well, not as good as it might have, but gasoline engine improvements are measured in percents.
When you start with an inefficient process your not going to get remarkable numbers without some major innovation.
Direct injection, turbo charging, start/stop, and other technologies are helping. Yet cars are heavier now because of all the creature comforts we desire and all the government regulations demanding the vehicles transmit the minimal amount of energy to the occupants in a crash.
Crashes that would have killed everyone in your example vehicles and left a vehicle barely recognizable now leave occupants nearly untouched and with some vehicles actually repairable.
Crashes that could not be avoided in your cars these days can be. Situations that were dangerous to drive in are very much less so.
No cars have come far, the race between efficiency and safety is erring to the side of safety.
While people throw out the bogeymen of SUVs and the like they ignore the fact that the majority of sedans get crap mileage as well.
Old beetles usually did 28 to 32 on the highway, took almost twenty seconds to reach 60. You could probably crash an infinite number of them into a new beetle before the new one was not drivable. You of course would have a lot of scrap old beetles laying around afterward.
Taking the mileage out of context does not make your argument better except at a cursory glance.
Frankly I would not dare drive most older cars everyday. Their brakes were horrid and their suspensions not much better.
As for the carb versus fuel injection comparison, get real. What you can do with direct injection shames a carb in both efficiency and pollution.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.