Heh! An Inflation Benefit!
I just discovered a great plus side to the inflation we’re all experiencing (well, the inflation regular gas and grocery-buying people are experiencing) - easy weight loss!
I’m nothing if not predictable. A couple of months ago, I was on a business trip for about a week. I generally ate dinner at the same couple of places every night. Moreover, I ate the same thing each time I visited each respective restaurant. Like I said, painfully predictable. (To the good, I didn’t ever have the same waiter or waitress. That’s something, I guess.)
Flash forward a couple of months and I go on another trip to the same place. I noticed something interesting when I went out to dinner. The prices were the same, but the portion sizes had shrunk noticeably. Not just at one restaurant - at all of them.
I guess it’s a nice side-effect of inflation. Food costs are rising rapidly, which puts a double hurting on restaurants. People are eating out less because they’re having trouble filling their own pantries and gas tanks. Compounding the problem from the restaurant’s point of view is that they have their own food cost worries.
It’s an easy weight loss plan for the millions of Americans who don’t eat at home each week.
On a somewhat related note, I read that childhood obesity isn’t as bad as had been previously reported. It turns out the rate of increase since 2003 has slowed. Hey, great! The US has plateaued at only 32% of little kids being overweight or obese. That’s awesome news. Kids still have it over adults in the US, though, since 66% of adults are overweight or obese. Something to aspire to I suppose.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Heh, I thought I was the only one who noticed it. I guess it’s easier for restaurants to shrink the food than to update dozens of menus with higher prices.
At least the shrink hasn’t hit my favorite fast food places yet; their business is probably booming.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:08 am
66%!!!! That number is astounding. Good thing I got my Wii Fit today:)
May 29th, 2008 at 4:42 am
@ Punny Money - That’s exactly what I figured - it’s cheaper than reprinting the menu every couple of months.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I haven’t noticed the smaller portion sizes as of yet. Smaller portion sizes wouldn’t be a bad thing though, especialy with the stats you’ve just mentioned on child obesity. I wonder if it’s the calorie intake or lack of exercise?
May 29th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
There are benefits to inflation. One big winner will be homeowners with fixed mortgages. The short term pricing issues now can easily be whipped away by 3 years of 7% inflation (even if in real dollar terms prices didn’t rise at all). And you get to pay back dollars that are not worth much to those that lent you the money as the years go by. The biggest beneficiaries of inflation are those with large amounts of long term fixed rate debt (which includes the federal government among others).