MSN Money: What if no one were fat?

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What if no one were fat?
Imagine a lean and healthy America: The savings on medical, fuel, food and
other costs would be enough to give every U.S. household more than $4,000.

By Shirley Skeel
Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series on financial what-ifs.

In the United States today, 66% of adults are overweight. Almost 33% of
adults are obese, and 4.7% are morbidly obese, or more than 100 pounds
overweight. But . . .

What if nobody in America were fat?

We'd save billions of dollars in gas. Airlines would double their profits.
A dearth of diabetes and other diseases would save billions of dollars more
-- and put thousands of doctors on the street. McDonald's would sell not
Big Macs but little steamed chicken snacks -- or watch its profits melt
away. Productivity would rise, potentially creating tens of thousands more
jobs or higher wages all around.

Add up the savings up on health, food, clothing and efficiencies, and you
could buy a professional home gym for every U.S. household -- or hand each
$4,270 in cash.

$487 billion in gas, sweat and stretch pants
Yes, it sounds a little wild, but the implications of a leaner, meaner
country add up to a weighty $487 billion. That's almost 3.5% of gross
domestic product, no small sum.

Mind you, only 1.8% of that is new growth. The rest is a radical shift in
resources, away from the needs of our bigger citizens to . . . well,
whatever we and our overlords would spend these extra billions on.

First, let's put the meat on that $487 billion. The estimates below assume
the average American adult is at least 20 pounds overweight, a figure
nutritionists see as fair.

Savings on fuel for cars and airlines due to their lighter loads would top
$5 billion, according to industry studies. Researchers say each overweight
driver burns about 18 additional gallons of gas a year, or just under a
billion gallons altogether. Savings in the air are far greater: The
jet-fuel savings alone could double North American airlines' forecast 2008
profits to $3.8 billion and maybe persuade them to stop stranding
passengers because they can't afford the fuel for flights. As for oil
imports, they'd be dented by less than 1%.

Plus-sized clothing costs 10% to 15% more, so shoppers would save $10
billion on shirts, pants and dresses. And clothes might fit better too.
Cynthia Istook, an associate professor in textile apparel at North Carolina
State University, says the economies of making fewer sizes would be
tremendous. Clothing makers could then afford to offer more variety in hip
and bust sizes, rather than asking every woman to squeeze into an hourglass
shape.

Because 3,500 calories translates into a pound of fat, somewhere along the
way, America's 227 million adults have eaten 16 trillion calories too many.
That's 14 billion Big Mac meals, with fries and a soda. Eliminate those and
you wipe out $81 billion, or McDonald's past four years of sales.

If Americans were slim and maintained their weight by eating 150 fewer
calories a day (half a slice of pizza), that could snip roughly 6.5%, or
$20 billion a year, off U.S. farmers' sales (assuming no extra exports).
Bob Young, the American Farm Bureau's chief economist, says farmers would
cope. They'd switch some land from fattening seed oils and sugar beets to
fruits and vegetables. Or they might grow corn for ethanol, or even open a
hunting resort.

The medical costs of obesity-related problems such as diabetes, stroke and
heart disease run near $140 billion, or more than 6% of all health-care
costs. That ballpark figure was calculated by Joel Cohen, an economic
researcher for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, using data
from a 1998 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. Cohen reckons
that if no one were fat, medical insurance costs would fall -- to
everyone's delight -- and doctors and drug makers could do more preventive
care. That sounds good, but Roland Sturm, a senior economist for Rand in
Santa Monica, Calif., doubts anyone would pay for preventive care. More
likely, he says, some doctors would be on the street. "They could drive
cabs," he suggests.

Productivity in the workplace would jump as people took fewer sick days and
spent less time at work feeling unwell. Ross DeVol, the director of health
economics at the Milken Institute, says the loss of productivity due to
people showing up at work sick is "immense." Using a recent Milken report
on the subject, he calculates that if no one were obese, the added output
from workers and their caregivers would give the country a $257 billion
boost. That's 1.8% of GDP, enough extra output to allow businesses to hire
tens of thousands more workers or to raise wages, economists say. Or at
least, that's the theory. Given bosses' love of expanding their profits and
their own pay, you can count on some of this being spirited away. Just look
at 2000 to 2005, when worker productivity rose 16.6% while median wages
rose less than half that amount.

"Jenny Craig would be very unhappy" if everyone were slim, says Rand's
Sturm. And so she would, along with the rest of the $55 billion weight-loss
industry. Trimmed-down citizens would be swapping their diet pills for
bikinis and their gastric-banding for nose jobs.

What to do with all that money?
On top of these savings would be billions of dollars more. Manufacturers
and builders wouldn't have to make doorways bigger, car seats wider,
furniture stouter. Some even argue that global warming would slow a mite,
as consumption of gas, energy, fertilizer and methane-producing cattle
decreased.

Even without those extras, the $487 billion reshuffle of the economy would
put us on the spot. Exactly how would we spend all this freed-up cash?
Optimists sing about improving education or medical research. Others figure
we'd fritter away the money.

On 29 Apr 2008 00:38:14 -0000, marge DeleteThis @nothing.org (Marge) wrote:

>http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/Advice/WhatIfNoOneWereFat.aspx
>
>What if no one were fat?


Who would idiots like you ridicule?

>Imagine a lean and healthy America: The savings on medical, fuel, food and
>other costs would be enough to give every U.S. household more than $4,000.

For charm school?

>
>By Shirley Skeel
>Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series on financial what-ifs.
>
>In the United States today, 66% of adults are overweight. Almost 33% of
>adults are obese, and 4.7% are morbidly obese, or more than 100 pounds
>overweight. But . . .

Yes and there is a fat guy under my bed right where Joe McCarthy said
the communists would be.

>
>What if nobody in America were fat?

What would brain stems do to keep themselves entertained with no one
to poke sticks at? How would they spend their day.

>
>We'd save billions of dollars in gas. Airlines would double their profits.

They would make this profit only because there are no fat people.
Never mind the bad management practices, poor financial habits and
waste.

>A dearth of diabetes and other diseases would save billions of dollars more
>-- and put thousands of doctors on the street.

Yes-remember that only fat people get diabetes. I guess a lot of thin
people would die becuase there would be no insulin available for them.
Id there is no diabetes, why have insulin?

> McDonald's would sell not Big Macs but little steamed chicken snacks -- or watch its profits melt
>away.

Yep-that is how they made their money you know. Being just like
everyone else.


> Productivity would rise, potentially creating tens of thousands more
>jobs or higher wages all around.

Right-that is becuase only fat people are lazy and take advantage of
employer amenities and do it every chance they can, right?

>
>Add up the savings up on health, food, clothing and efficiencies, and you
>could buy a professional home gym for every U.S. household -- or hand each
>$4,270 in cash.

Ad everyone would be so very happy grunting and groaning on a bowflex
and even the women would look like Mr. Universe.

>
>$487 billion in gas, sweat and stretch pants

Of course everyone knows that only fat people wear stretchy and comfy
clothes. Only fat people waste gas, right?

>Yes, it sounds a little wild, but the implications of a leaner, meaner
>country add up to a weighty $487 billion. That's almost 3.5% of gross
>domestic product, no small sum.

Come on, how are you gonna make the fat people disappear and put the
brain stems in charge?


>
>Mind you, only 1.8% of that is new growth. The rest is a radical shift in
>resources, away from the needs of our bigger citizens to . . . well,
>whatever we and our overlords would spend these extra billions on.

Of course, a blighted case of Aryan delusion. You don't want the
"bigger citizen" to even exist, do you?


>
>First, let's put the meat on that $487 billion. The estimates below assume
>the average American adult is at least 20 pounds overweight, a figure
>nutritionists see as fair.

Oh well, lets all make allowances for a fatter boy with titties.
>
>Savings on fuel for cars and airlines due to their lighter loads would top
>$5 billion, according to industry studies. Researchers say each overweight
>driver burns about 18 additional gallons of gas a year, or just under a
>billion gallons altogether.

Blame it all on the fat people.

> Savings in the air are far greater: The
>jet-fuel savings alone could double North American airlines' forecast 2008
>profits to $3.8 billion and maybe persuade them to stop stranding
>passengers because they can't afford the fuel for flights. As for oil
>imports, they'd be dented by less than 1%.
>
>Plus-sized clothing costs 10% to 15% more, so shoppers would save $10
>billion on shirts, pants and dresses. And clothes might fit better too.
>Cynthia Istook, an associate professor in textile apparel at North Carolina
>State University, says the economies of making fewer sizes would be
>tremendous. Clothing makers could then afford to offer more variety in hip
>and bust sizes, rather than asking every woman to squeeze into an hourglass
>shape.
>
As if the average shopper isn't confused enough as it is.

Fat people don't need clothing-god forbid that they have money to buy
what they want.

This proves that the inmates are trying to run the asylum.

LV

"I rode a tank and held a general's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank."

---Sympathy for the Devil-The Rolling Stones
--------------------------------------------
"A fanatic cannot change his mind and will not
change the subject."

---Winston Churchill
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