An Economist's Guide to Dieting and

Burning Calories, Newsweek

How to burn off all those holiday calories? Economist
Richard B. McKenzie recommends 10 counterintuitive ideas
to make calories more expensive and exercise more valuable
in the New Year.
by Richard McKenzie | December 31, 2011 4:45 AM EST

American adults downed an average of 6,000 calories on Christmas day—and are now living to
regret their feasts. That means each adult consumed in that one day the calories recommended
for a single adult for three days. And given that many Americans watched their food intake
carefully, many other Americans consumed on Christmas enough calories for several adults, if
not an SUV full of them. Much of the excess calories will, of course, be packed on top of
people’s already excessively padded butts and guts.

How to make amends? The easy answer all too many nutritionist and fat experts give is to seek a
“negative energy balance,” which is to professional jargon for the obvious, eat less than you
expend. Well, duh! I dare say all but brain-dead Americans know that.

Many Americans will return to diets they used before, most of which haven’t worked (judging by
Americans’ continuing expanding waistlines). Let me proposed a new approach to dieting that
draws on two solid economic propositions:

First, “demand curves slope downward,” which is to say that if the price of food goes up, the
quantity consumed will go down.

Second, “incentive matters,” which is to say that successful diets require some real or imagined
gain that exceeds any pain associated with weight loss.

What dieting advice plays to these long-tested economic dictums? Let me give you my top 10
dieting tips that fall out of my economic analysis of the country’s excess-weight problems:

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Lynda Schemansky / Getty Images

First, settle on the amount of weight you want to lose, say, by Christmas. Then, agree to pay
someone, preferably someone you don’t like, $500 (or $1,000) if you have not lost the desired
weight by Christmas Eve. The pledged payment will immediately raise the price of calorie-rich
combo meals at fast-food restaurants and provide a reward for running an extra mile, literally.

Second, if wine consumption is a contributor to your excess weight, buy more expensive wine,
because the higher price will cause you to sip the wine more slowly and cause you to down fewer
glasses. Ditto for eating out. Commit to going to more expensive restaurants. You will tend to
get smaller and healthier portions and forgo the high-priced desserts.

Third, recognize that out-of-home meals generally are more fattening than in-home
meals. Agree on a tight monthly budget for eating out and put the budgeted amount of cash in an
envelope. The budgeted cash will raise the cost of meals out, because they will force you to
assess the cost of going out today in terms of giving up meals out later in the month.

Fourth, many Americans use credit cards to pay for food for an obvious reason: they make the
immediate cost of food “feel” cheaper. Raise the perceived cost of food purchases by committing
to using only cash.

Fifth, if you have a candy bowl with leftover Christmas goodies on your office desk, place it as
far away as you can in your office. Better yet, put the bowl on someone else’s desk down the
hall, which will increase the walking “price” of snacking.

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Sixth, researchers have found that people who use large dinner plates eat larger portions than
people who use small plates. Throw out your 12-inch plates and replace them with 10-inch
plates. Better yet, use your salad plates for dinners.

Seventh, people who have fat friends tend to be fat themselves, and tend to gain more weight
than people with thin friends, mainly because weight has a lower psychic cost when all around
are heavy. Make thin friends, exactly because they will make you feel fatter.

Eighth, people eat more when they go to eat with people of the same sex, presumably because
they are not trying to attract them as sexual partners and mates. Increase the frequency you eat
with people of the opposite sex.

Ninth, we all are inclined to put our trimmest pictures on our Facebook sites. Put your most
unflattering and fattening pictures up for all to see. Such postings will increase the incentive you
have to lose weight and post new, thinner pictures.

People who have fat friends tend to be fat themselves, and tend to gain more weight than people
with thin friends, mainly because weight has a lower psychic cost when all around are heavy.

Tenth, join a gym that has a high upfront investment and low monthly payment, or low payment
per visit. The low marginal cost will encourage you to work out more often.

Frankly, there are a multitude of ways to lose those Christmas calories, and then some. The key
is to find ways to make food more expensive (in real or perceived ways) and to find a payoff for
controlling the calorie intake.