Losing weight used to be all about keeping healthy and attractive, but now we may also have a financial benefit as we drop those pounds. Sheldon H. Jacobson, professor of computer science, At UIUC and his former graduate student Laura A. McLay, now a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, have found that weight gain of U.S. drivers has increased the nation's fuel consumption.
Their conclusions are based on mathematical computations drawn from publicly available data on U.S. weight gain from 1960 to 2002, a period in which the weight of the average American has increased by more than 24 pounds, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. By 2002, 62 percent of adults were overweight with a body mass index of between 25 and 30; more than 30 percent were considered obese with a BMI exceeding 30.
They determined that this extra weight accounts for 1 billion additional gallons of gasoline a year being used. Jacobson stated”
“Although the amount of fuel consumed as a result of the rising prevalence of obesity is small compared to the increase in the amount of fuel consumed stemming from other factors such as increased car reliance and an increase in the number of drivers, it still represents a large amount of fuel, and will become even more significant as the rate of obesity increases.”
According to the USDA American’s consumption of food has increased, from 1970 to now, by over 500 calories per day and it is continuing to increase. If I remember correctly from my 300 previous diets 2500 calories equals one-pound weight gain. So, in one year it would be possible to gain 53 pounds by eating 500 calories a day over what you burn.
Anyway, by leaving the car home and walking, you save twice on gas, first by not using any and second by weighing less when you do drive.
What does 1 billion gallon of gasoline look like? One gallon of gas weighs about 6 pounds, so 1 billion gallons would be 6 billion pounds. So that would be 12 million 500 pound people. The 2000 census states that Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana population is about 12 million. Imagine the entire population of Los Angeles weighing 500 pounds each.