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”
Hi Victor,
You asked me to do two estimations:
– The total number of calories represented by $2.7 billion in candy.
– How many pounds (or kilograms) of weight the American population will gain?
To find the first estimation, we need to guess the average number of candies we can buy with a dollar and the average calories per candy. If we multiply $2.7B by those terms, we can find the total amount of calories.
During my last trip to USA, I bought a 25-pack of Reese’s for ~$50. Do you mind if I use them as a parameter? I know that they are very popular on Halloween and that people generally buy family packs for the event. So, I will use a ~25/$50 = ~0.5 sweet per dollar rate.
I can also guess an average of 200 calories per sweet. Thus, we have $2.7B*0.5 (sweet/$) *200 (cal/sweet) = 270B cal ingested by the Americans.
To find out the total amount of pounds gained, we just have to multiply this value per the pounds gained per calorie ratio (1/3500). Thus, we have 270B cal * 1/3500 (pound/cal) = ~80M pounds gained by the Americans during halloween.
As USA has 320M inhabitants, it means an average of 320M/80M = ~0.25 pound gained per American, what is reasonable.
Best wishes from Sao Paulo,
A regular big Mac meal has about 500 calories. The fries itself would be 50% of the total calories or 250 calories. Since a regular candy is so small compared to the fries, we can assume it has 1% calories compared to the fries or 2.5 calories/candy. A candy costs anywhere from a quarter to $2. So we will take the middle which is $1/candy. With $1 for 2.5 calories/candy, it’s estimated to have about 6 billion of calories consumed for $2.7b of candy.
With 6 billion of calories consumed and 3500 calories consumed results in a person gaining 1 lb, the American population will gain about 1.5 million lb.
Hi Victor,
Here is my estimation:
The weight the American population will gain is approximately 40,000 pounds.
Here is the process:
I can buy 3 0r 2 candies with $5/$4, I would approximate that at .5$ each.
The average candy has got 100 calories so the ratio candy to $ is 1/200.
The equivalent of 2.7 billion dollars of candy can then be approximated to 14 million calories.
Pounds to calories is 1/3500 which I multiply to the amount of calories.
Shall we estimate how may will hit the gym? 🙂
My assumption is that 1$ of candies equals to somewhere around 350calories as I believe that candies will be of an average rather low nutritive quality and will contain high levels of fat and sugar (low cost components).
Henceforth 10$ equal to 3500calories or 0;45kg say 0.5kg.
So 2.7billion$ divided by 10$ and mutliplied by 0.5kg gives an estimate of 135 million kg of additional weight for the american population.
Estimated US population weight gain: 43ml lbs
—————————————————————————-
[US Pop Gained Weight] = [1/3500]*[USD 2.7bn]*[Avg “Halloween Candy” Kcal per 1$]*[Consumed Candies on Total Collected]
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I assume a quite high ratio of consumed candies on total collected, 90%. Sometimes it happens to collect few candies which are not meeting the taste of the person who collected them. These can be exchanged, but I consider anyway a minimum number of exemption in which collected candies are not eaten.
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The only dimension I need to find is the [Avg “Halloween Candy” Kcal per 1$], i.e. the average Kcalories per dollar per candy consumed in Halloween.
Since “Kcal” is the relevant dimension, I consider the ingredients these candies are made of as the basis for my segmentation (CATEGORY).
To find out the average Kcal for 1$ i need consider also:
Then I consider the share, on the total candies bough in Halloween, for each of these categories (DISTRIBUTION).
The last two dimensions are: the average Kcal per pack (KCAL PACK), and the average price per pack (PRICE PACK).
The result is:
(CATEGORY),(KCAL PACK),(DISTRIBUTION),(PRICE PACK)
a) Chocolate, 70 kcal, 30%, 0.5$
b) Peanut, 90 kcal, 20%, 0.4$
c) Mixed Candy Bars, 70 kcal, 20%, 0.1$
d) Caramel, 45 kcal, 5%, 0.2$
e) Fruity, 80 kcal, 10%, 0.2$
f) Hard Candies, 50 kcal, 15%, 0.3$
===========================
{Wght Avg} 24.5 kcal, 0.35$ —> 70 kcal per 1$
——————————————————————————————-
[US Pop Gained Weight] = [1/3500]*[USD 2.7bn]*[Avg “Halloween Candy” Kcal per 1$]*[Consumed Candies on Total Collected]
= [1/3500]*[2.7 bn]*[70]*[0.9] = 43ml lbs
——————————————————————————————–
Notes: the distribution is based on the picture Victor posted above, I have never celebrated Halloween so I have no precise idea on which candies are more popular.
Notes: prices are really low if we compared to the price of loose candies. However I think that during Halloween most of the candies are bough in bags/boxes and maybe online (on amazon). That is why, in this circumstance, the cost of the single candy results lower.
Americans will gain around 79 mln lb
To support my (gu)estimation I did the following:
1) Determined the product
I thought of what product would have higher demand and portion in 2.7 bln$ spent.
Considering this amount was bought for Halloween “trick or treat” purposes I would assume that the most popular were chocolate bars/bite size sweets (the pic you attached kind of confirms it)
2) Segmented the market by brand
Considering different brands have different market share in America/different prices/different products, I estimated what market share will each candy brand have, given the market share in general and the variety of chocolate bars (which we determined as a target product) supply from each brand. Approximates as follows:
Mars => 30%
Hershey’s => 30%
Lindt/Ghirardeli => 6%
Mondelez => 5%
Nestle => 5%
Other => 24%
3) Calculated the market share (total 2.7 bln$* #2)
Mars and Hershey’s: 2.7 bln$ * 30% = 810 mln$
Lindt/Ghirardeli: 2.7 bln$ * 6% = 162 mln$
Mondelez and Nestle: 2.7 bln$ * 5% = 135 mln$
Other: 2.7 bln$ * 24% = 648 mln$
4) Estimated the average price per candy
Mars: 2$
Hershey’s: 3$
Lindt/Ghirardeli: 2.5$
Mondelez: 1.5$
Nestle: 1.5$
Other: 2$
5) Calculated the amount of candies per Company (#3/#4)
Mars: 810 mln$/2$ = 405 mln candies
Hershey’s: 810 mln$/3$ = 270 mln candies
Lindt/Ghirardeli: 162 mln$/2.5$ = 64.8 mln candies
Mondelez and Nestle: 135 mln$/1.5$ = 90 mln candies
Other: 648 mln$/2$ = 324 mln candies
6) Estimated the average kkal per candy
Mars: 250 kkal
Hershey’s: 200 kkal
Lindt/Ghirardeli: 240 kkal
Mondelez: 250 kkal
Nestle: 200 kkal
Other: 200 kkal
7) Calculated total kkal for 2.7 bln$ (#5*#6)
Mars: 405 mln candies * 250 kkal = 101,250 mln kkal
Hershey’s: 270 mln candies * 200 kkal = 54 mln kkal
Lindt/Ghirardelli: 64.8 mln candies * 240 kkal = 15,552 mln kkal
Mondelez: 90 mln candies * 250 kkal = 22,500 mln kkal
Nestle: 90 mln candies * 200 kkal = 18,000 mln kkal
Other: 324 mln candies * 200 kkal = 64,800 mln kkal
Total kkal: 101,250 54 15,552 22,500 18,000 64,800 = 276,102 mln kkal
8) Calculated the amount of potentially gained weight for total American population
276,102 mln kkal/3500 kkal = 78.9 mln lb
So if your kids managed to capture 420 candies and taking into consideration 33% tax will be collected, this gives us 420 – 33% = 218 * avg. 200 kkal per candy = 56,200 kkal
Even assuming they will share equally between themselves it still give us 56,200 kkal/3 children = 18,733 kkal.
Seems like they better share some with their Mom and Dad…
Happy Halloween!
3500 calories= 1 lb
So lets say $1 = x calories
So 2.7 b $= 2.7 B x calories.
Total weight gained = 2.7 Bn x/3500.
Assuming 1 $ = 517.92 calories(some google search gave me that figure)= x
Therefore total weight gained= 2.7 Bn* 518/3500= 179.82 million Kgs weight gained by americans
160219780 kgs
Assume the average price of every 100g of candy follows the normal distribution, so the average price can be quite representative of the candy population. Then I’ll assume the average price of each 100g candy is about $3, so there are $2.7 billion / $3 = 9 * 10^8 unites of 100g candy.
Again, assume the distribution of calories of each 100g of candy follows normal distribution. Then we assume for each 100g of candy, the average calories is 200. So the total calories of the candy is 9 * 10^8 * 200 = 18 * 10^10.
Because each 3500 calories consumed results in 1lb weight gain, and the current population of America is about 320 million, for each American the average weight gain (assume no significant calories consumption activities taken place during the time period such as exercise) is 18 * 10^10 / 320 million /3500 = 0.16lb. On average, each individual consumed around 563 calories of candy, roughly 2 blocks of Cadbury chocolate.
I assume that it is around 212,560,229 calories, a little above 300 calories per dollar since a lot of candy is expensive and very calorie dense!