Since we follow environmental news here, I thought I would share an interesting recent story about how our expanding waistlines are affecting our economy and the environment.  There have been tons of stories over the past few years about how Americans are getting fatter and how like 90% of us are considered overweight by government standards.  A bunch of numbers are always being thrown out like treatment for the explosion of diabetes will cost $5 billion a year or our total health care bill will rise by $78 billion or whatever.  But something I never saw before was how our increasing weight causes us to use more gasoline - roughly $2.8 billion a year more.

According to a study done by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Virginia Commonwealth University, Americans are using 938 million more gallons of gasoline per year than they did in 1960.  Their numbers are based on the fact that since 1960, our average weight has increased by 24 pounds.  The $2.8 billion amount is based on $3/gallon gas, but any way you slice it the dollar amount is going to be pretty huge.  There are other factors to take into account, like more people owning cars and extreme commuting, but then there are also other things like us being fatter makes us drive more because we have to go to the doctor more often or we’re just too fat to walk anywhere.

Weight Gain Of U.S. Drivers Has Increased Nation’s Fuel Consumption [Science Daily]