Editor’s Note: I was happy to run a guest post from my own son, and now I’m happy to run one from a young person I’ve never met! (Don’t worry, I checked him out, and he’s a real person.) I will have another post about the amazing experience of being featured on the Daily Show soon, but wanted to get this post up first. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. As we saw in Illinois, student involvement can go a long way! —S.Y.
DST and Obesity (Photo from Unsplash)
The obesity epidemic is no joke.
The rate of obesity in the United States is rising among both adults and children. From 1990 to 2015, the rate of obesity among adults rose from less than 15 percent to almost 40 percent. Children are not immune either. CDC data indicates that 13.7 million children are obese.
The economic cost of obesity is also a concern. The CDC reported that it cost $147 billion in 2008 dollars.
Of course, the obesity debate is subject to partisan squabbling, pitting the “food police” versus those among the more libertarian camp. Thankfully, there is a bipartisan response to the epidemic that would anger neither of these groups.
That response? #LockTheClock.
Numerous studies have shown that shifts into and out of Daylight Saving Time (DST) increases laziness. One 2012 study looked at cyberloafing and found a positive correlation between cyberloafing and the spring transition into DST.
The spring shift into DST—when the light is moved into the afternoon—has been demonstrated to increase physical activity among children in the afternoon.
This effect is not limited to children. Measuring the time before the fall back to Standard Time and the transition into DST, two researchers writing in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that improving lighting conditions in the afternoon was likely to cause an increase in both cycling and walking.
The researchers studied cycling and walking patterns in Arlington County Virginia from 2011 to 2016. Their findings showed that when compared to dark evening conditions, the hour of “extra sunlight” from DST “resulted in a 62 percent increase in pedestrians and a 38 percent increase in cyclists.”
An additional study from the University of Washington estimated the economic costs of the DST extension in 2007. This extension put the United States on DST for an additional month in the spring. The researchers used this change as a study period and found that the extension resulted in $250 million in health expenditure savings. And this was a conservative estimate, as they note that savings could have been as high as $8.33 billion.
Why? Simply put, more daylight in the afternoon means that more people spend time outside instead of sitting and watching TV. People spent as much as 30 more minutes outside per day, compared to the previous DST-ST transition time. This translated to a 1-lb reduction in fat every 2.5 weeks. Not bad for just moving daylight around.
So sure, DST won’t singlehandedly defeat the obesity epidemic. But considering everything else the DST-ST transitions do to people, locking the clock for permanent DST is a cost-effective way to incentivize exercise.
So, Congress, your move. For the health of your constituents, please #LockTheClock.
Jonathan Helton is a student majoring in Law and Politics at Freed-Hardeman University. He is interested in miscellaneous types of public policy and has published articles about foreign aid and U.S. maritime legislation. While in high school, he was an active member of his debate club and had the pleasure of debating about DST during one year. This article represents some of the research he compiled.