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”
1 bag of candy cost 3 dollars, it will be about 300g, with an estimation of 500cal/100g, one bag of candy contains 1.5k cal.
2.7 billion dollars means 0.9 billion bags of candy. therefore approx. 1.5 trillion cal will be consumed.
1.5 trillion cal/3500 cal/lb = 0.4 billion lb = 40 million lb
40 million lb/300 million people = 0.15 lb/people
1.9 trillion calories
540 million pounds
Assuming $10 for 100 snack size candies at 70 calories a pop (similar to Walmart best seller fun pack)
The American people will gain an estimated 150,000,000 pounds in aggregate, or roughly 0.469 pounds per individual.
Assuming:
320 million – estimated population of US
50 million – estimated population of US of age to trick-or-treat
420/30 = 140 pieces of candy per trick-or-treater (ToT)
~75 calories per piece of candy
Then:
~75 calories * 140 pieces per ToT =
10,500 calories per ToT * 50 million =
525,000,000,000 total calories in candy / 3500 calories per lb. =
150,000,000 total pounds gained in candy
Bonus:
150,000,000 total pounds gained in candy / 320,000,000 Americans =
~.0469 pounds gained per American
– $2.7B spend on candy
– I’m not American, but I think a Mars bar costs ~US $1 in the States.
– Calories in a Mars bar = ~250 calories
– Assume cost and calories per Mars bar is spread pro rata to smaller pieces of candy
Therefore, $2.7B/$1 = 2.7B Mars bar sized pieces of candy
Total calories = 2.7B x 250 calories = 675B calories
675B calories / 3500 calories per pound = ~193M pounds gained by the American population.
But they’re also expending energy while they eat the candy, walking from house to house etc so need to discount for that as well.
Assumptions :
Average calories of a candy per 100 g ( Source : CNN food central) : 550 cal
Average price of candy per 100 g : $1.3
So, 2.7 bn* 550/$1.3 ; = 1.14 trillion calories
1.14 trillion calories/3500 calories = 326 million pounds
The American population will gain,
326 * 0.45 = 150 million kgs
Assumptions:
Assuming the Snickers Fun Size as a typical Halloween treat, which has 80 calories, a pack of let’s assume 40 pieces, costs about 5 dollars.
This results in 3200 calories for 5 dollars.
For $2.7B we would get 540M packs.
Those packs would have 1,728 B calories.
If 3500 calories, lead to 1lb of weight gain,
$2.7B would lead to 500M lb of weight gain.
Since the average candy probably is cheaper than Snickers,
by about 30%, we could estimate another 150M lb of weight gained, on top of that, leading to
650 lb M weight gained.
$2.7B would be 270MKg considering $10/kg
3500cal responsible for 0.45 kg gain in weight
5000cal/Kg candy, so a 1Kg would be 0.65 kg gain in weight
270MKg candy would increase the overal weight by 175MKg.
325M people, so per person it’s about 0.5Kg.
219M lb = 1 lb / 3500 cal * 425 cal / $1 *$1.8B spent
~ 61 million pounds.
2.7 billion dollars – 2.5b spent on “snack-size packs” and 0.2b spent on regular-size bars. Snack size packs can be considered to be ~ 10 small candies; could be sold in varying quantities in total but assume each increment of 10 is costing $2.50 and containing 200 cal. Regular bats cost $1 and contain 200 cal.
Snack-size cost (per increment) = $2.50
Regular bar = $1.
Run through calculations to arrive at ~61 million pounds assuming 3500 cal/pound.
Of “candy-vores,” I estimate about 1 lb per person.
I segmented the amount spent on candy into cheap ($1.8 B), moderate ($600 M), and expensive ($300 M). Roughly estimating $5/10/15 per pound of the treats gave me 360 M, 60 M, and 20 M pounds of candy from $2.7B; total 460 M lbs of candy.
A pound of candy does not equal a pound of weight gained. Assuming that the candy is basically all sugar, 1 lb of candy = 454 g of sugar and each gram of sugar is 4 cal. So 1 lb of candy is about 900 cal of sugar. Factor in the 3500 cal/pound gained, and you get about 0.25 lb weight gain per pound of candy.
0.25 * 460 M lbs of candy is 115 M lbs, which would be just over 1/3 lb per person if all 320 M people ate candy. I’d argue that less than half of the population actually eats candy to a measurable degree, so I would say for 115 M people, each would gain about 1 lb from candy consumption.