Obesity “hitting air fares”
The American obesity problem is having a direct effect on air fares, according to a survey by the US government.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has calculated that the average weight of Americans increased by some 4.5 kilos – or 10 pounds – during the 1990s, meaning US airlines had to burn some 350 million gallons of fuel in the year 2000 than they did a decade earlier.
The agency also states that the weight increase had environmental effects, because an extra 3.8 million tons of carbon dioxide were released into the air.
The CDC says that the calculations are “rough estimates”, published to highlight different consequences of the current obesity epidemic.
Around 56 per cent of Americans were classified as overweight or obese in the early 1990s, the report states, while that figure had grown to 65 per cent in a 2002 survey.
Dr Deron Burton, of the CDC, said: “The obesity epidemic has unexpected consequences beyond direct health effects. Out goal was to highlight one area that had not been looked at before.”
Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad Ltd
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