Fatter drivers cause increase in gasoline consumption, says study

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Being overweight isn't just bad for your health. New research suggests that America's obesity epidemic is also feeding the growth in U.S. fuel consumption.

Americans are pumping almost 940 million more gallons of gas into their vehicles than they did in 1960 because the average American is roughly two dozen pounds heavier. That amounts to $2.8 billion more spent on gas each year, if gas is selling for $3 a gallon.

So says a new study from researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Researchers used federal statistics to calculate how much fuel Americans in 1960 and other years would have used if they were driving in 2003.

"We basically looked at the average weights of people for different time periods, and then we took those people and we put them in . . . today's cars with today's driving habits," said Sheldon H. Jacobson, one of the study's authors and a professor of computer science at U of I.

Jacobson and Virginia Commonwealth professor Laura McLay also factored in variables such as passengers of different weights and ages.

The study, to be published in The Engineering Economist journal, shows that "our nation's hunger for food and our hunger for oil aren't independent of each other," Jacobson said. "Beyond public health, being overweight has many other socioeconomic implications."

No word on Al Gore going to the gym for the betterment of the planet.