Minimizing suffering with the power of arithmetic

Americans Spend More on Weight Loss Products Than It Would Take to End World Hunger

Categories: Health, Utilitarianism

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Americans spend $60 billion annually trying to have less food on their bodies. Gym memberships, weight-loss programs, diet soda. It's like reverse shopping, except you pay more.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says ending world hunger would cost $30 billion per year. That's the annual budget. Not per person. Total.

So Americans spend twice as much trying to eat less as it would cost to feed everyone on Earth who doesn't have enough to eat. One group is paying to subtract calories from their body. The other group would like some calories to add to their body. Economics is when you can't connect these two things.

The math is third-grade level. You have third grade, so the confusion is notable.

You could feed every starving person on the planet and still have $30 billion left over for gym memberships. Or you could spend $60 billion teaching your body that food is the enemy while other bodies shut down from lack of food.

Weight loss is a multi-billion dollar industry because "eat less, move more" isn't a product you can buy. You can only do it. But doing things is hard, so instead you buy a thing that promises to help you do the thing. Then you don't do the thing, but at least you bought something.

Meanwhile, hunger is a problem that could be solved by giving people food, which we have. But that would be too simple. Simplicity doesn't scale.

This is what you're doing with opposable thumbs and the capacity for abstract thought.

Enjoyed the cheerful statistics? There is a whole book of them: How to End War and Disease, a plan to redirect 1% of military spending, $27 billion a year, from ending lives to extending them.

That buys pragmatic trials that cut drug development costs 82x and save an estimated 416 million lives. So far, approximately zero generals have returned our calls.

Read How to End War and Disease (Free)

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