http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15415446/
A stupid article if I ever saw one.
___________________________________________
Expanding waistlines add to pain at the pump
U.S. obesity linked to extra gasoline consumption, researchers say
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:18 a.m. MT Oct 25, 2006
CHICAGO - Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some weight.
That’s the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage.
Using recent gas prices of $2.20 a gallon, that translates to about $2.2 billion more spent on gas each year.
“The bottom line is that our hunger for food and our hunger for oil are not independent. There is a relationship between the two,” said University of Illinois researcher Sheldon Jacobson, a study co-author.
“If a person reduces the weight in their car, either by removing excess baggage, carrying around less weight in their trunk, or yes, even losing weight, they will indeed see a drop in their fuel consumption.”
Fewer miles per gallon
Outside experts said that even if the calculation aren’t exact, the study makes sense.
“If you put more weight into your car, you’re going to get fewer miles per gallon,” Emory University health care analyst Kenneth Thorpe said Wednesday.
The same effect has been seen in airplanes. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that heavy fliers have contributed to higher fuel costs for airlines.
The obesity rate among U.S. adults doubled from 1987 to 2003, from about 15 percent to more than 30 percent. Also, the average weight for American men was 191 pounds in 2002 and 164 pounds for women, about 25 pounds heavier than in 1960, government figures show.
The study’s conclusions are based on those weight figures and Americans’ 2003 driving habits, involving roughly 223 million cars and light trucks nationwide.
It will appear in the October-December issue of The Engineering Economist, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Society of Engineering Education and the Institute of Industrial Engineers.
Jacobson, an industrial engineer, conducted the research with Laura McLay, a doctoral student in his Champaign-Urbana lab who now works at Virginia Commonwealth University.
39 million extra gallons of fuel
They estimated that more than 39 million gallons of fuel are used each year for every additional pound of passenger weight.
The amount of extra fuel consumption blamed on weight gain since 1960 — 938 million gallons — would fill almost 2 million cars with gas for an entire year. However, that is only 0.7 percent of the total amount of fuel consumed by U.S. passenger vehicles each year, Jacobson said.
The estimates “are probably pretty reliable,” said Larry Chavis, an economist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “I don’t know if it’s going to encourage anybody to go out and lose weight to save gasoline, but even for individual families, it could have an effect on their budget.”
Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, former CDC director and chairman of an Institute of Medicine report on obesity, said the findings are almost beside the point.
“The wrong fuel is being focused on,” said Koplan, now at Emory University. “If you’re heavier, the most important fuel you use more of is food.”
Fat people use up more gasoline :rolleyes: Well of course they would. They'd be exercising less, and would depend on they're cages more. So of course theyd use up more gasoline. If they were skinny, it probably is because of some exercise which in all probability includes lots of walking and biking, thus they would use the car less...
noisebeam
10-25-06, 03:06 PM
Stating what may be obvious to you, but not to millions others does not make a news article stupid.
Al
Severian
10-25-06, 03:09 PM
hmm... don't they know the axiom: "correlation does not imply causation" I don't think that those extra pounds are lowering gas milage. It's more likely that people are more lazy so they are driving more AND this is causing an increase in poundage-of-person. Also they want larger cars to fit their larger bodies and larger cars have, typically, lower gas milage.
I wish I had something funny to say about this but I'm all out of humor today.
bbonnn
10-25-06, 07:33 PM
The article is dumbed-down for idiot-consumption, meaning it doesn't include any of that irksome evidence or detail about the study which could confuse the news-cows. I hate this kind of short declarative article. Leaves you wondering.
The same effect has been seen in airplanes. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that heavy fliers have contributed to higher fuel costs for airlines.
I also wonder about that. Is it just that, as flying becomes more of a hassle, people are bringing more carry-on baggage, adding to the weight in the passenger cabin? Or does it have anything to do with the fact that people are increasing in height due to better nutrition and medical care in youth, and increasing thusly in weight? Of course, obesity is probably the chief reason, but as soon as you decide to only investigate one or two variables, you get annoying people like me popping up screaming "But what about ..."
hmm... don't they know the axiom: "correlation does not imply causation" I don't think that those extra pounds are lowering gas milage. It's more likely that people are more lazy so they are driving more AND this is causing an increase in poundage-of-person. Also they want larger cars to fit their larger bodies and larger cars have, typically, lower gas milage.
I wish I had something funny to say about this but I'm all out of humor today.
I don't know about this, I have seen small folk driving massive SUVs and very large people driving micro cars, so weight and car size don't always relate. However weight does affect fuel efficiency, thing is, a person weighing 400lbs with an empty trunk, and a person weighing 125lbs with 275lbs of crap in the trunk, will come out even. I'll agree though that people who are going 100m for a pack of butts, and take the car, are using more fuel then people who walk anything under 1km.
LittleBigMan
10-26-06, 07:17 AM
Saw "Over the Hedge" with my daughter the other day. That's where these animals wake up from hibernation and go looking for fresh food, only to run into a giant hedge. Seems a massive subdivision was built while they slept, what's worse, paving over their food sources.
A wiley raccoon comes to their rescue. Having been there and done that, he explains to the other animals that now, there is actually more food over the hedge, not less. So they go a-hunting through garbage cans.
Oops! I forgot what I was going to say... :eek:
Oh, yeh... :)
They see a huge black SUV for the first time. "What's that?!" asks one.
Raccoon knows. "It's called an SUV. You see, humans are slowly losing their ability to walk, and this is how they get around."
"How many does it carry?" the other asks, gawking at it's huge appearance.
"Just one, usually."
FlatTop
10-26-06, 07:38 AM
The automakers sweat blood over every ounce of weight and tenth-of-a-cent of production cost which is not utterly necessary. I find it plausible that passenger weight is a factor in fuel economy, particularly in city driving, where the human payload has to be continuously accelerated and braked. Nothing free in physics. So in a macro kind of way, yes, I think it makes a difference. In day-to-day living, I'm pretty sure nobody cares.
joejack951
10-26-06, 08:19 AM
The automakers sweat blood over every ounce of weight and tenth-of-a-cent of production cost which is not utterly necessary. I find it plausible that passenger weight is a factor in fuel economy, particularly in city driving, where the human payload has to be continuously accelerated and braked. Nothing free in physics. So in a macro kind of way, yes, I think it makes a difference. In day-to-day living, I'm pretty sure nobody cares.
Automakers put bigger and powerful engines in their cars to offset the fact that their cars are getting obnoxiously heavy (new Porsche 911's are around 4000 lbs. whereas they used to be ~2700 lbs. 15 years ago). DVD players, airbags, sunroofs, power everything, a/c, leather, etc. all come with a big weight penalty. Automakers only sweat weight penalties on actual racing cars where you can't just put in a bigger gas tank and call it good.
Eli_Damon
10-26-06, 08:40 AM
(1) Even if the conclusion is true, it is totally irrelevant. It takes a much bigger commitment to get fit than to buy a little more gasoline.
(2) The argument doesn't make any sense. Compared to the weight of the car itself, the weight of the driver's excess fat it almost insignificant.
AlmostTrick
10-26-06, 08:58 AM
While any extra weight will certainly effect fuel consumption to some degree, keeping the tires properly inflated would make more of a difference than a few pounds.
Then again stopping to fuel up may be the most exercize some drivers get! :p
LittleBigMan
10-26-06, 09:05 AM
(1) Even if the conclusion is true, it is totally irrelevant. It takes a much bigger commitment to get fit than to buy a little more gasoline.
(2) The argument doesn't make any sense. Compared to the weight of the car itself, the weight of the driver's excess fat it almost insignificant.
Ya, it kinda makes me wonder why the article. I mean, there are other easier ways to get better gas mileage besides losing weight.
1) Buy a smaller car.
2) Drive intelligently by not racing up to every stop light.
3) Leave home 5 minutes early to drive slower.
4) Don't get a full tank every time (less weight, but you need to get a full tank often enough to keep moisture from condensing in the gas tank.)
5) Carpool.
6) Plan trips more wisely to avoid those "quick trips" to get forgotten items at the store, or avoiding traffic jam periods where you sit idling or crawling at a snail's pace.
7) Learn to use alternate forms of transportation, especially human power. This will have also address the obesity issue at the heart of the article.
While any extra weight will certainly effect fuel consumption to some degree, keeping the tires properly inflated would make more of a difference than a few pounds.
Then again stopping to fuel up may be the most exercize some drivers get! :p
Ya, and that, too!
:beer:
cooker
10-26-06, 10:02 AM
I don't think there's anything particularly faulty about the study itself. The authors chose to focus on the potential miles/gallon costs of transporting obese people, and estimated it amounts to about 0.7% of a car's gas mileage. They aren't saying many other factors aren't equally or much more important. But the best point was made by Koplin, quoted in the article, that overeating wastes gasoline even if you're not driving, because so much gas is used in food production.
Air
10-26-06, 10:27 AM
Of course! Well, to save energy the next time my family goes out we'll take three cars to get better gas mileage...wouldn't want to put all that weight in one! :rolleyes:
1 billion gallons? When I drove my pickup (crew cab dually - weighted 7400 pounds without people) if I didn't put 1000 pounds of concrete in the bed my mileage dropped because it bounced around. The only time I felt like it drove differently was when I had 6 people in there and 2000 pounds in the bed - harder to brake but I was religious with the mileage (no change). Yes, if you take a super efficient car with a tiny four cylinder engine and put a family of four in there the car will burn more gas and feel very sluggish. Put that same family in a big SUV with a big ole V8 and you won't measure that big of a difference. Aren't we supposed to be driving with more people in cars anyway? I bet the mileage of the cars in the 60's barely varied if the car was loaded or not (since the engines on the big muscle cars were the same as my truck - 454 baby!).
Hmm, so maybe we should drive big SUVs to offset any gas mileage penalties when extra weight's in the car...
This reminds me of the "Future Self" episode of South Park. Yes people should lose weight. Yes we have an obesity problem. The health penalties are much worse than having to create distractive studies about gas mileage.
Keith99
10-26-06, 10:37 AM
(1) Even if the conclusion is true, it is totally irrelevant. It takes a much bigger commitment to get fit than to buy a little more gasoline.
(2) The argument doesn't make any sense. Compared to the weight of the car itself, the weight of the driver's excess fat it almost insignificant.
I want to expand a bit on 2:
You are right it does not make sense that the change in passenger weight would be significant. But on the other hand it does make sense that more weight means more gas consumption/less acceleration.
BUT why go round robin hoods bard (British expression) to get the answer? Airlines and car manufacturers have done the engeneering calculations that make it pretty easy to get teh answer directly, so why the round about answer?
Answer: Because the additional gas consumption is trivial. Perhaps even so trivial that it would be within experemental error if you tried to measure it directly with just the additional weight of even huge people.
Keith99
10-26-06, 10:41 AM
Ya, it kinda makes me wonder why the article. I mean, there are other easier ways to get better gas mileage besides losing weight.
7) Learn to use alternate forms of transportation, especially human power. This will have also address the obesity issue at the heart of the article.
Ya, and that, too!
:beer:
Technically this is part of number 7. How about just taking the first parking place you find instead of waiting for five minutes with teh engine running for one right in front of the store? (Often with 5 cars stuck behind you with their engines running also).
slowandsteady
10-26-06, 11:22 AM
Stating what may be obvious to you, but not to millions others does not make a news article stupid.
Al
No, that isn't it. It is stupid because the conclusion makes no sense. There is correlation without causation, yet their conclusion implies there is causation. They don't make mention of the desire to drive higher horsepower vehicles. How about the early 80's when highly efficient cars were bought over gas guzzlers due to high oil prices? Then in the 90's we saw record low prices adjusted for inflation and subsequent gas guzzler SUVs became popular. Ever think that a truck that weighs 1,000 pounds more than previous year's vehicles has more of an effect on gas mileage than that 20 lb spare tire around the driver's waist?
fenester
10-26-06, 11:35 AM
Just a very rough estimate with their figures. There are supposedly 300 Million Americans, right? And according to the study Americans, on average, weigh 25 lbs. more, each, than they did in 1960.
39 Million gallons of extra gas are used per pound of extra weight per year (from article)
So, 39M*25=975M extra gallons per year (over 1960 weights)
975M/300M= 3.25 gallons per year per person. So, for a family of four that's 13 gallons a year. Not a hell of a lot.
LittleBigMan
10-26-06, 01:32 PM
What about the junk in my trunk?
We should declare November 2 "Clean Trunk, Clean Air" day.
Air
10-26-06, 02:48 PM
We should declare November 2 "Clean Trunk, Clean Air" day.
Sheesh, I shower more than just on November 2nd. :p
noisebeam
10-26-06, 04:09 PM
No, that isn't it. It is stupid because the conclusion makes no sense. There is correlation without causation, yet their conclusion implies there is causation. They don't make mention of the desire to drive higher horsepower vehicles. How about the early 80's when highly efficient cars were bought over gas guzzlers due to high oil prices? Then in the 90's we saw record low prices adjusted for inflation and subsequent gas guzzler SUVs became popular. Ever think that a truck that weighs 1,000 pounds more than previous year's vehicles has more of an effect on gas mileage than that 20 lb spare tire around the driver's waist?
I was looking at in from a much simplier level. It is a fact that the more weight in a given vehicle, the more energy it will take to move it, especially w/many accerlations.
Even the article noted that the calculations may be off.
All that is irrelevant. The conclusion remains the same, more fat, more energy based purely on simple physics. How much fuel, how much fat, how significant relative to other factors really don't matter.
That said, even if the impact is a fraction of a percent, that is still a lot of energy in total, even it isn't a lot per capita or as a percentage of total energy consumption.
Al
Keith99
10-26-06, 04:25 PM
I was looking at in from a much simplier level. It is a fact that the more weight in a given vehicle, the more energy it will take to move it, especially w/many accerlations.
Even the article noted that the calculations may be off.
All that is irrelevant. The conclusion remains the same, more fat, more energy based purely on simple physics. How much fuel, how much fat, how significant relative to other factors really don't matter.
That said, even if the impact is a fraction of a percent, that is still a lot of energy in total, even it isn't a lot per capita or as a percentage of total energy consumption.
Al
No the numbers do matter. Yes it does make sense that more mass (not weight) will result in more gas consumption as long as there is starting and stopping (accelerations) involved is right. But how much gas makes a big difference. The actual direct effects are trivial. Actually I'd guess that associated behaviours that are at least as apt to be causes of gross obesity have a much larger effect. Idling in the drive through at Jacks, MCds or even In and Out probably accounts for several times as much gas consumption. Not to mention driving 4 blocks to get a parking spot 1/2 block closer. Or for that matter just driving out for a meal rather than cooking at home (that one shared by some rather thin people).
noisebeam
10-26-06, 04:28 PM
No the numbers do matter. Yes it does make sense that more mass (not weight) will result in more gas consumption as long as there is starting and stopping (accelerations) involved is right. But how much gas makes a big difference. The actual direct effects are trivial. Actually I'd guess that associated behaviours that are at least as apt to be causes of gross obesity have a much larger effect. Idling in the drive through at Jacks, MCds or even In and Out probably accounts for several times as much gas consumption. Not to mention driving 4 blocks to get a parking spot 1/2 block closer. Or for that matter just driving out for a meal rather than cooking at home (that one shared by some rather thin people).
Of course they are. Nowhere did the article say or imply that passenger/driver weight was a top or significant cause of fuel usage.
Al
LittleBigMan
10-27-06, 07:08 AM
Dang. Looks like riding the train too much lately, I've gained a couple of pounds!
If I ride my bike with that extra weight, the extra energy spent will mean more food I have to eat, which will use more gasoline for food production.