The obesity epidemic

The Trust for America’s Health just released a report on obesity in America. It said we’re fat and getting fatter: adult obesity rates rose in 31 states last year.

Jim Marks, a spokesperson for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which sponsored the study, said that obesity costs $117 billion per year in preventable health care expenditures. Americans seem to agree: the report said 85% of Americans believe that obesity is an epidemic.

Lots of organizations release reports. What caught my interest in this one is that the reporting organization’s Secretary is Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Senior Scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and an expert in public health and bioterrorism. An expert in nuclear threats and bioterrorism with the last name of Hamburg is focusing on obesity?

The real numbers behind this story is how much money we’d save if everyone ate less.

According to my calculations based on current eating habits and food prices, Americans would save $430 billion/year by reducing 1,000 calories from their daily diet. What’s a thousand calories? Try four slices of toast with butter, or two chocolate bars, or a Big Mac and fries.

Combine the food savings with the preventable health care savings – forget about all the fuel we’d save in cars and airplanes not carrying around all that extra weight and the $1.8 billion we spend on diet books – and we’re looking at a 4% reduction in our GDP.

Fat economy indeed.

A judge lost his pants - and maybe his mind

Custom Cleaners lost DC Administrative Judge Roy Pearson’s pants. It may end up being very good for business.

Here’s the math: Consumer protection laws provide for fines of $1,500 per day per defendant. Pearson came up with 12 separate violations from the pair of pants lost in 2005. So let’s see... according to Judge Pearson, 12 violations times 1,200 days times three defendants – the dry cleaner has three owners – times $1,500 a day, plus $15,000 for a rental car to take his clothes to another cleaner, and some other expenses required due to the defendants alleged misdeeds, works out to around $65 million.

Judge Pearson not only has an interesting view of the law, but of math. Where did 1,200 days come from? As of today, there could not be more than 893 days, even if the pants were lost on New Year’s Day in 2005. This would reduce the amount Judge Pearson seeks to a modest $48 million but Judge Pearson sort of split the difference and reduced his claim to $54 million.

Who knows? Strange lawsuits have worked before. 1992 was a good year for them. In February, Stella Liebeck collected nearly three million dollars after burning herself with a cup of coffee from McDonalds. Later that year, Karen Norman got drunk, drove her car into the bay, and drowned when she couldn’t undo her seat belt. Her family was awarded $65 million from Honda. An appeals court threw out the case.

There are some strange lawsuits that people would like to see be successful. In April this year Project Honey Pot filed the largest anti-spam lawsuit ever, seeking more than one billion dollars in damages. Those spammers could lose their shirts in this one. Which may be better than losing your pants - or your mind.

In the meantime, Custom Cleaners has more publicity than it could ever have dreamed of; Judge Pearson may just be good for their business!