What if no one were fat?

By Shirley Skeel

Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series on financial what-ifs.

In the United States today, 66% of adults are overweight. Almost 33% of adults are obese, and 4.7% are morbidly obese, or more than 100 pounds overweight. But . . .

What if nobody in America were fat?

We'd save billions of dollars in gas. Airlines would double their profits. A dearth of diabetes and other diseases would save billions of dollars more -- and put thousands of doctors on the street. McDonald's would sell not Big Macs but little steamed chicken snacks -- or watch its profits melt away. Productivity would rise, potentially creating tens of thousands more jobs or higher wages all around.

Add up the savings up on health, food, clothing and efficiencies, and you could buy a professional home gym for every U.S. household -- or hand each $4,270 in cash.

$487 billion in gas, sweat and stretch pants

Yes, it sounds a little wild, but the implications of a leaner, meaner country add up to a weighty $487 billion. That's almost 3.5% of gross domestic product, no small sum.

• MSN Health: Tools to help you lose weight

Mind you, only 1.8% of that is new growth. The rest is a radical shift in resources, away from the needs of our bigger citizens to . . . well, whatever we and our overlords would spend these extra billions on.

First, let's put the meat on that $487 billion. The estimates below assume the average American adult is at least 20 pounds overweight, a figure nutritionists see as fair.

• Savings on fuel for cars and airlines due to their lighter loads would top $5 billion, according to industry studies. Researchers say each overweight driver burns about 18 additional gallons of gas a year, or just under a billion gallons altogether. Savings in the air are far greater: The jet-fuel savings alone could double North American airlines' forecast 2008 profits to $3.8 billion and maybe persuade them to stop stranding passengers because they can't afford the fuel for flights. As for oil imports, they'd be dented by less than 1%.

• Plus-sized clothing costs 10% to 15% more, so shoppers would save $10 billion on shirts, pants and dresses. And clothes might fit better too. Cynthia Istook, an associate professor in textile apparel at North Carolina State University, says the economies of making fewer sizes would be tremendous. Clothing makers could then afford to offer more variety in hip and bust sizes, rather than asking every woman to squeeze into an hourglass shape.

• Because 3,500 calories translates into a pound of fat, somewhere along the way, America's 227 million adults have eaten 16 trillion calories too many. That's 14 billion Big Mac meals, with fries and a soda. Eliminate those and you wipe out $81 billion, or McDonald's past four years of sales.

Continued: Productivity would jump

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