Your car is making you fat

Everyone has their own theory on why society as a whole is getting fatter. Apart from the fact that most of us just like food and eat way more than we should of the wrong things, the list of things to blame includes :

The true culprit is ……..the automobile.

A professor of computer science has crunched the numbers and found that cars are what is in reality making us fat.

Obesity epidemic began with Ford

Mr Ford, had a vision to take the automobile from a toy of the rich and famous, to the man on the street.

Cars began hitting the roads in mass, in the 1950s. They’ve multiplied like bunnies, to the point that they are EVERYWHERE. But as the car has been embraced by the masses, so has the mass of the masses began creeping up.

Cars on the road track obesity numbers

Yup, the car population of the world started edging up in the 1950s and so did waste lines.

Energy imbalance a la car

The energy formula is really very simple………..

Energy in must equal energy out

Any deviations from the fundamental equation, will ultimately leave you too thin or too fat.

Few people, tip the equation to the too thin side. The too fat side has a lot of takers.

Commuting in the car means less, pretty close to no energy consumed. You’re sitting in the car like a lump, this translates to zero energy being used.

Driving home the numbers

The prof did a little calculation to prove the point. Using American national statistics from 1985 to 2007. He found almost a perfect “match” between how many miles the average licensed driver travelled and the aggregate level of obesity.

Modern living doesn’t take much energy

Before the invention of the car – it took a lot more energy to live.

You had to expend energy to get food.

Now you can actually accumulate more energy, as you scoff down food, en route to acquiring your food.

Park and be less wide

So consider leaving the car parked in the garage and hot footing it to where you need to go. I did say HOT FOOTING it, not car pooling.

A note on the relationship between obesity and driving. Transport Policy (2011) 18(5) : 772-776 Sheldon H. Jacobson, Douglas M. King, Rong Yuan

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