Gas hogs
When Sheldon Jacobson and Laura McLay talk about gas hogs, they don't mean big SUVs.
They're looking at us!
The two academics are getting a lot of news coverage this week for their study showing how much extra gas Americans eat up on account of being overweight.
Here's a press release from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Jacobson is a professor of computer science.
He and McLay, a faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University, calculate that every extra pound on American bellies or backsides burns 39 million gallons of gas a year. The total comes to 938 million gallons. Even without a degree in computer science, I can figure the profs are pegging us as 24 pounds overweight, on average.
Yeah, I could trim a few from around the middle.
Whatever the math, but it makes sense that more weight in the car cuts your mileage. Every extra fill-up at the buffet adds another fill-up at the gas station.
To make matters worse, I'm going to venture a guess that the biggest people rarely drive the smallest cars. They can't fit. They're lumbering along in vehicles that already get low mileage, and they're weighing them down even more.
Well, this is unacceptable. We have an energy crisis. We have global warming. We can't stand for some people consuming more than their share of resources, edible or otherwise.
How long before someone proposes an adjustment to federal fuel efficiency standards? Your vehicle will be required to get a certain number of miles per gallon WITH YOU IN IT. Eat too much junk, your car will flunk. And you're sentenced to weekends on the fat farm.
Of course we could blame the oil companies and fatty foods industry for this. They must be teaming up. Justice Department, put your leanest, meanest lawyers on the case.
Comments (2)
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First let's get the car companies to stop LYING about how many MPG's that cars do get! Did you know the standards for which the MPG is calculated is based on outdated equipment from the 60's. The milages are calculated based on a flat terrain, no wind, no weather, no bumps in the road, no fatties in the car, etc.
Consumer Reports says that the MPG shown on new cars is really not valid at all, and in some cases double that which that car will really get.
So, when the companies are mandated to stop lying, I'll put my brownines down.
Posted on October 27, 2006 8:16 AM
Maybe they use 140-pound test drivers.
Posted on October 27, 2006 8:19 AM