Last night, I took my kids out for an American children’s holiday known as Halloween.
Kids (and some ahem… adults) dress up in costume (I was a penguin this year), go door-to-door, saying “Trick or Treat” and get free candy from the neighbors.
My three kids brought back a record 420 pieces of candy. 
In today’s New York Times, I learned that in the weeks leading up to this holiday, Americans purchased $2.7 BILLION dollars in candy.
So here’s my challenge for you.
Assuming all of that candy is consumed by someone in America, estimate the total number of calories represented by $2.7 billion in candy.
Assuming 3,500 calories consumed results in a person gaining 1 lb (0.45 kg) in weight, estimate how many pounds (or kilograms) of weight the American population will gain. Add a comment below to post your entry.
The winner will receive public acknowledgement of their estimation skills, and I will send them a portion of the candy “tax” I collected from my kids.
Yes, we tax our kids for a portion of their candy collection, as mom and dad provide “infrastructure” and “chaperone” services.
It’s a useful lesson in taxation.
(We tax at a 33% tax rate.)
Mostly it is an excuse to reduce the amount of sugar they will otherwise end up consuming.
For my kids, it’s an excuse to get rid of the candy they don’t like anyways.
Good luck and Happy Halloween!
Entries will be accepted for next 72 hours, and only entries posted as comments below will be considered. A winner will be announced next week.
UPDATE as of Friday, November 4TH AT 12PM ET: New entries are welcome, but not eligible to win, as contest has closed.
329 thoughts on “A Sweet Estimation Question”
4.5 pounds
Based in 300,000,000 Americans, 175 calories per fun size piece of candy, 50 pieces per bag, $5 per bag.
Let’s assume most of the candy bought for Halloween is “Fun Sized” which have about 90 calories and you can buy a bag of 150 for about $30 or about $0.20 ! piece, that means that $2.7B bought 13.5B Fun size candy bars which account for 1.215 trillion calories. Which translates into 347 million pounds gained. IF distributed equally among the population it means that the average American will gain roughly more than a pound (1.08) in average.
Based on the premise that 1 kid collected, 150 candies (with 100 cal per candy), and assuming a bag of 150 candies costs $10.
$10 represent 15,000 calories (15 KCal), The total number of calories represented by $2.7 billion is 6000 billion
Assuming 3,500 calories consumed results in a person gaining 1 lb (0.45 kg) in weight, American population will gain 1.75 billion pounds (or ~600 pounds per person, assuming a population of 300 million)
347143 kilograms
About 460,000,000 kgs or 926,000,000 lbs
675M lbs
Given:
– Total spend on candy = $2.7b
– 3,500 Calories = Increase in weight by 1lb
Assumption: (Case in point: Hershey’s Kisses Holiday Candy Cane Milk Chocolate)
– 80gm of Candy = $3.51 = 400 calories
Calculation:
If 3,500 calories add 1lb of weight, we will need approx 9 packs of the above candy to add 1lb of weight, which would cost approx. $31.5, say $30 ( 5%)
If every $30 spent on candy adds 1lb of weight, a spend of $2.7b will add approximately 90m lb in weight. So for on $31.5 per candy, 90m lb (-5%) = c.85.7m lb
Hence, we can estimate that a spend of $2.7b on candy will lead to a weight gain of 85.7m lb.
Picking the clue from my first ever Halloween purchase of some delicious chocolates in France recently, 3kg of chocolates cost about 10 euros during the festive discounts of Halloween.
Since the currencies of US and Europe are nearly comparable in terms of the PPP, hence assuming the same cost estimate for United states Halloween season festive discount sales as well.
With each kg containing about 30 pieces of chocolates, this makes 90 pieces of such chocolates in 10 euros. Calculating the number of pieces in $ 2.7 billion , it comes around 21.87 billion pieces. Knowing that 100 grams of 50 % cocoa (which is a fair percentage assumption for the population lot we are estimating for) chocolate contains 500 calories, Assuming each piece of chocolate (approximately 30 grams) would contain approximately 150 calories, therefore, 21.87 billion pieces amounts to a tremendous number of 3300 billion calories.
Using the given fact that 3500 calories leads to a weight increase of 0.45 kgs, hence, 3300 billion calories would result in a 424.2 million kgs increase in the US population.
2.05 trillion calories = 585 million pounds (about 1.8 lbs / American!)
$2.4B / $1.2 per candy * 0.45kg per 3,500 cal * 520 cal per candy = ~133.7M kg = 133,700 ton