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."

Comments

Less than one percent...

[BobMcD]

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.

Re:Less than one percent...

[natehoy]

We probably don't. Any round number like that is suspicious to start with.

However, your observation does lead to a good point. Extra vehicle weight, and other factors, do affect fuel mileage.

Every pound you add to your vehicle (whether it be lard or steel) reduces your fuel mileage by some small percentage (especially in city driving). Every item you add to your vehicle that interferes with the smooth flow of air around your vehicle also has the same effect, including roof racks, etc (especially in highway driving). Fast starts and heavy acceleration also have a significant effect, as does driving very fast (these two often add to maintenance costs, as well, and apply to both city AND highway).

These "little things" have a way of adding up to a measurable amount of money at the end of the year.

To keep the math easy, take a 20MPG pickup with $2/gallon fuel. That's ten cents a mile for fuel. If you drive 10,000 miles a year, fuel for that vehicle will cost you $1,000.

For every 10% (2MPG) increase or decrease, you are looking at an approximate additional expense or savings of $100 per year. So adding those cargo racks to the back of the truck just cost you the cost of the racks, plus $50-100 a year as an ongoing expense in lost fuel. If you don't need them, take them off. Or spend a few bucks on the ones that fold down out of the way.

Carrying around 200 pounds of bricks in your trunk for a month when it never snowed at all just cost you $5, which you could have saved by removing them until snow was forecast. Putting your studded snow tires on two months before it started snowing cost you $10 and made you put a couple thousand miles of wear on a set of studded snows that are a lot more expensive per mile than regular tires.

Racing off the line to beat the other guy in the shinier car to the merge cost you a between a dime and a half a dollar.

You saved $100 on a set of tires, but are annoyed because they are a tad noisier than you had hoped for. Guess what? That noise probably means the tires have higher rolling resistance, and over the 30,000 mile lifetime of those tires you'll end up spending $200 more in fuel to run them. Run them underinflated for a while and they'll wear out faster and cost you even more fuel.

Each of these things cost you money. Money you could use to buy other things if you wanted to.

Whether you choose to spend it on them is, of course, your decision. But it's a good idea to think about them.

Think about that the next time you are first in line at a red light, the lane merges ahead, and you've got some dude in a fancy car who wants to play. Do you want to be first? Glue a quarter on the dashboard near the redline indicator to remind you that it costs money. Spend it if you want, but be aware you are spending it.

Re:Less than one percent...

[hamburger lady]

methinks the fuel that went into the growing, processing and shipping of all the extra food obese americans stuff down their pieholes is gonna account for a more substantive share than this.

How about

[Dunbal]

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?

Re:How about

[oldspewey]

I was on a flight recently, sitting in my window seat and getting settled while the plane was still loading, when a guy came trundling down the aisle who was around 6' tall and at least 300lbs+. Turns out he was my seatmate. It was only a short flight, so as he shoved his gear into the overhead I did my best to adopt a buddhist mindset and accept the fact there would be a little encroachment into my space for the next hour or so.

Turns out this guy wasn't happy with a little encroachment and he wanted to raise the armrest between our seats - said he can't fit comfortably between the armrests and needs to raise the middle one whenever he flies. I politely told him I'd be more comfortable with the armrest down and that I'm sure we'd be able to figure it out. He decided he needed to "stand his ground" and said there's no way he can sit - even for a short flight - with the armrest down. As more and more passengers lined up behind him (I was in seat 8A IIRC, on a plane with 24 or 25 rows), the flight attendant eventually got involved and asked what was going on. I stayed polite, but told her that I bought the same coach class seat as the other guy, and that I need to keep the armrest down for my own comfort and safety.

The FA told the guy he'd either have to sit in his assigned seat with the armrest between us down, or he could move to the last row of the plane and have 2 seats all to himself (she said the flight was "almost full but not quite"). You should have seen the glare this guy gave me as he took his bag back out of the overhead and trekked off down to the last row of the plane. Screw him - I paid for 1.0 seats. I'm willing to accept 0.9 but I'm not going to cheerfully smile and accept 0.6 for the next couple hours.

I'm sequestering carbon

[Linux_ho]

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

The Cost of Cheap Gasoline

[handy_vandal]

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.

Here is a modest proposal!

[lupinstel]

We can melt down all the fatties and use them as bio-diesel.