ARE YOU AN OVERWEIGHT OR OBESE JET-SETTER?

I got bad news for you.

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Physicians concerned about obesity warn that expanding waistlines in America are posing an unexpected cost --- to airlines.

The report, featured in this month's American Journal of Preventive Medicine, said that weight gain in the 1990s, estimated at about 10 pounds per person, required the use of an additional 350 million gallons of jet fuel in 2000.

That represents about 2 percent of the total volume of jet fuel used that year.

Two physicians at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a California public health officer estimated that the weight gain was costing airlines about $275 million per year back in 2000, when jet fuel cost 79 cents per gallon --- less than half what jet fuel costs today.

The report also warned that the extra fuel added 3.8 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions and less sizable quantities of other pollutants, such as nitric oxide and carbon monoxide. [Billings Gazette]

Being fat has become costlier and a contributor to environmental pollution.

This seems logical.

The logic used can even be applied when fat people travel using cars. High school physics will tell you that additional weight causes more drag; more drag means the car or plane engine (whatever the case, may be) will burn more fuel than necessary in order to perform its function.

This is another motivation for those overweight individuals to lose weight and modify their lifestyle habits.

If health reasons sound too harsh for you, then maybe economic and environmental reasons can help you change your mind and decide against binging on those burgers, fries, and gulping those sinful sodas.

What's it going to be?

Lose more inches in your waistline or lose more money?

Your move.