The Fuel Cost of Obesity 285
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."
So? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
What someone needs to do is track the relative fuel cost based on the weight and number of vehicles over the years, and it should be come apparent that we should be driving motorcycles and lightweight double passenger cars rather than trying to wrap our minds about how human weight affects oil consumption.
Re:Less than one percent... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nearly nothing, lets make that next to nothing, or completely negligable seeing how more fuel is used annually to run to the store for a newspaper or a soda or single under $10 items that aren't even close to being a necessity then the total passenger weight gain in non-commercial vehicles over the course of 42 years.
There was a study a while back which said that if people could purchase junk food when they purchased their groceries or gas or whatever other reason they needed to be at a store, we could cut something like 15% of our annual fuel usage. Of course I can't find a link to the article on it, but it was about consolidating trips to the store to save on fuel expenses.
10^9/10^11 = less than 1% reduction in fuel usage (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Reality Check (Score:2, Interesting)
But all of which, when combined have more of an effect then when you do only one of them.
Re:How about (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Less than one percent... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's have Fair Flying (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Let's see (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Less than one percent... (Score:3, Interesting)
All I see in the picture is some grotesquely obese guy with a poor fashion choice. And he looks pretty cramped in that Ford Excursion. ;)
The article actually specifically mentions that issue, at the end of the first paragraph, "Obesity has caused more people to buy larger vehicles..." I'm sure most of the increase in (non-commercial) car size is due to enormously fat people not fitting into normal cars (and bottoming out suspension, etc). That's pretty much common sense, and we've already had the "bigger cars use more gas" discussion. This article is trying to hit closer to home with the message, "your big fat ass uses more gas". Even a big, inefficient gas guzzler uses more gas hauling around a load of 300lb passengers than it does passengers 2/3 or half that size. Other wasteful behavior is pretty much irrelevant to this discussion, and doesn't negate the facts that body weight affects gas mileage. No matter how much unnecessary cargo, or sand bags, or whatever else you might have in the car (that can easily be removed if you wanted), your ass is always with you, putting additional load on the car's engine. No matter how stupid it is to go grocery shopping in a lifted H2 on 44s with a chrome winch, and an ATV on the roof rack, it still uses even more fuel if the driver is 200lb overweight.
Sure the article says its only .7% increase overall, but that increase is heavily weighted towards obese people. Skinny drivers help bring up the average MPG, so the impact doesn't seem as great. The increase in fuel consumption due to obesity affects *my* gas-mileage by about 0 percent. My 300-lb friend probably makes way more than .7% more trips to the gas station than I do, since he's carrying the burden (so to speak). That extra billion gallons of waste isn't evenly distributed across the population (though the environmental impact of burning that extra fuel to drag one's fat ass around town affects us all equally).
I'd be curious to see the study break out the numbers by weight class, or maybe have a test group of various people driving the same car (or same kind of car, and do it for several models) to see how their specific weights affect mileage. If they showed that being 50-100lb overweight actually costs you (just guessing) 10% more annually, that would have way more impact.
Interestingly, the bigger cars will show less of a performance decrease from obese drivers, since an extra 200-lb on the driver's body is a much smaller percentage of the total vehicle weight. Adding a 300-lb passenger to an 8000 SUV won't really affect much; its a drop in the bucket. Add a 300-lb passenger to a Toyota Corolla, and you can immediately tell a difference in the way the car accelerates and handles. As an obese driver of an H2 sheds weight, there will hardly be any increase in gas mileage; a 100-lb weight loss is barely more than a 1% change in total vehicle weight; mileage might increase from 11 mpg to 11.1 mpg. Drop 100-lb from your body and an econobox getting 35+mpg will gain a couple of mpg. The fact that obese people don't fit in efficient cars dilutes the real problem even more.
Re:Bicycle (Score:2, Interesting)
In the netherlands as well as in belgium we're seeing a huge surge of electrically assisted bicycles lately. You still have to pedal but the experience is like going downwind all the time. Especially for the folks in their 50's and 60's this means they can pop down to to town, get groceries etc. and still get some exercise and fresh air instead of having to take the car.
For those of us having to travel to work it means being able to take a bicycle for distances up to, say, 5 miles without excessive sweating.