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 $2.7 billion in candy.
Assuming 3,500 calories consumed results in a person gaining 1 lb (0.45 kg) in weight, estimate how many pounds (or kilograms) of weight the American population will gain. Add a comment below to post your entry.
The winner will receive public acknowledgement of their estimation skills, and I will send them a portion of the candy “tax” I collected from my kids.
Yes, we tax our kids for a portion of their candy collection, as mom and dad provide “infrastructure” and “chaperone” services.
It’s a useful lesson in taxation.
(We tax at a 33% tax rate.)
Mostly it is an excuse to reduce the amount of sugar they will otherwise end up consuming.
For my kids, it’s an excuse to get rid of the candy they don’t like anyways.
Good luck and Happy Halloween!
Entries will be accepted for next 72 hours, and only entries posted as comments below will be considered. A winner will be announced next week.
UPDATE as of Friday, November 4TH AT 12PM ET: New entries are welcome, but not eligible to win, as contest has closed.
329 thoughts on “A Sweet Estimation Question”
32piece snickers minie cost about ten bucks
it has 1380 calories
1$=138calories
snickers is expensive, so I ll use a 30% higher number at the end
my answer is 138.4 million lbs
My answer is 161 Mn Pounds. (161,000,000)
Hope the contest is still on.
Not giving away the method for this so as to not help anyone.
Hint: based on the most popular candy in the US in quantity (numbers sold) using the unit cost as well as the calorie per unit.
1.8 lb per person.
About 570m lb per american population. I calculated with 400 kcal per candy and 5b candies. I live abroad and don’t eat any candy at all so might be wide off the mark.
Also this weight only be gained if the candy kcal consumed Will be in excess of what American people need. If they eat the equivalent of one candy less in other food intake and eat one candy they will not put on weight as one kcal is still roughly one kcal whatever the source. That doesn’t make it remotely healthy or nutritious and if I was world dictator I would replace all Halloween trick or treat candy with trick or treat fruit… Much better for you and much more delicious in my opinion…
Assumptions:
A 300 kcalorie candy bar costs about a dollar.
3500 kcalories yields 1 lb of weight gain
320M people live in the US
$2.7B * 300 kcalories = ~800B kcalories
800B kcalories / 3500 kcalories per lb = ~230M lbs gained
Estimation check: 230M lb / 320M people = ~3/4 of a pound per person seems reasonable
2.7 billion $ in candy each year
Average price : 2 $.
So 1.35 billion candy packs consumed each year.
Let’s assume that each pack has 1000 calories in it.
so it represents 1350 Billion calories per year.
1350B/3500 = 385 million lbs a year
Let’s divide this by the american population (assuming that everyone will eat some)
385 M/320M: 1.2 lbg gained per american people.
Lets start the solution with a few assumptions.
A pack of candy costs ~ $4.5
A pack of candy would contain approx. 15-20 pieces of candy. For simplicity sake, lets assume the quantity per pack ~20.
1 unit candy contains ~35 calories
Thus, a pack of candy would contain 35 * 20 =~ 700 calories
Taking into account about $2700 million was spent on candies.
The total no. of candy packs consumed can thus be calculated as
4.5*(no. of candy pack) = $2700 million
No. of candy packs consumed = 600 million
Thus, the total amount of calories consumed in 600 million candy packs = 600 million * 700 => 420 billion
Since, 3500 calories consumed results in a person gaining 1 lb,
420 billion calories consumed would result in the overall weight gain to be 420000 million / 3500 = 120 million pounds
The American population would gain 120 million pounds or 120*0.45 = 54 million kgs
$2,700,000,000 in candy
$10/bag of minis size candy bars mix (2.5lb / 1.134kg)
Calories: 40g-200cal, per bag: 1.134kg-5670cal.
270,000,000 bags purchased (total of 1,530,900,000,000 calories), next divided by 3,500 calories = 437,400,000 pounds gained, (198,401,303 kilograms). The American population will gain 437,400,000 pounds, or 198,401,303 kilograms. It means 1.32 lb (0.61 kg) per person (assuming the US population is ~325 million).
Best regards,
Michal
$3 bn dollars of candy consumed by 300 million people (rough guess on U.S. population) = $10/ person.
Assuming, price of a candy bar is 50 cents on average, then total number of candies consumed by each person is ($10/$0.5)= 20.
Now, assuming that weight of a candy may vary from 10 gms to 100 gms as the sizes and packets are of various sizes, so in that case on an average let us assume each piece of candy to weigh 50 gms ( somewhere in the middle).
So, total weight of a candy consumed by each person is 20 x 50 gms. = 1000 gms or 1 kg
Assuming 1 piece of candy weighing 50gm (my estimate) is equal to 250 calories (my estimate), so total calories consumed will be (250 x 0.05)=12.5 calories
Total calorie intake for U.S.A. population = (12.5 x 300 million) = 3.75 bn calories
3500 calories increases 0.45 kg, so overall weight increase = ( 3.75 bn x 0.45 kg) = 1.6 bn kg = 4 bn pounds
Hello,
1 candy = 175 cal (assumption for the sake of the case)
1 candy = $1 (assumption for the sake of the case)
$2.7 b = 2.7 b candies
2.7 b candies x 175 cal/candies = 472.5 b cal
472.5 b cal / 3500 cal/lb = 135 m lb
Cal per candy – 240 Cal
Cost per candy – 1US
Total cal – 240×2.7Bil/1 = 648 Bil Cal
Total Mass gain = 648Bil/3500
= 185 Million Pounds