M&M Math July 20, 2010

 This week, my sister, knowing of my great love of M&M’s sent me 3 large bags as a belated birthday gift (thanks, Katie!).  I brought from home an industrial sized candy jar, dumped in all three bags, and placed it next to my desk inviting friends and co-workers to help themselves.  The jar consisted of peanut M&M’s, peanut butter M&M’s and the new pretzel M&M’s.  Today, the contents of the jar are nearly gone, prompting several questions from Dan Ihrke, PTA.  And so as a result, this week we are co-writing this Wellness Letter. 

 Today’s M&M Math began as such:  When Dan was but a high schooler, he said he had a wellness day where each kid in his class was lined up on the football field and given 1 plain M&M.  Each kid was asked to eat the M&M and start walking.  They could stop at the distance they thought it would take to burn off the calories consumed.  Dan and the rest of the crew were floored to learn that to walk off 1 plain M&M, they would need to walk the length of the football field, end to end, all 120 yards.  One M&M.  Plain.  No peanuts, no peanut butter, no pretzels. 

 Thinking like a dietitian, this morning, Dan went to the vending machine, threw down his 70 cents and bought a pack of plain M&M’s.  This is what he found:

• “Out of curiosity and the fact that my first session was a bust, I went and bought one pack of regular M&M’s. 53 total M&M’s in the package. At 240 calories per package, each piece of candy contains 4.5 calories. At the rate of having to walk 120 yards to burn off 1 piece of candy, I would have to walk 6,360 yards. That equals out to be 19,080 feet or 3.61 miles!!!!! That’s a lot of walking for 1 package of candy. It’s easy to see why a sedentary lifestyle can get you those extra pounds in a hurry.”
• (Dan then proceeded to eat the pack of M&M’s.  All in the name of science.)

 Now, exercise only counts if the activity is above and beyond what you do in your regular day-to-day activity; all the walking the therapists and nurses do during their daily tasks doesn’t count, (sorry).  So I asked Dan what this meant in terms of walking back and forth from the therapy gyms to the nursing hub:

• “From the PT/OT gym to the nursing hub is roughly 200 feet. That means someone would have to walk down to the hub and back to the gym roughly 50 times (in order to burn off the calories from 1 pack of plain M&M’s). That’s a lot of walking!!! “

 So then we got to thinking about the industrial-sized candy jar.  We were both curious as to the amount of calories in the entire jar and the above-and-beyond-distance one would have to walk to burn off all the calories.  I had already thrown away the packaging, and in a much less scientific manner, I visited Walmart over lunch to examine the nutrition labels on each type of candy.  Remember, these were the large bags.  This is what I found:

• Peanut M&M’s:  1 serving size consisted of about ¼ of a cup of M&M’s and one serving will cost you 220 calories.  One forth of a cup holds about 17 peanut M&M’s (flush to the top, not heaping).  Each peanut M&M is roughly 13 calories.  The package informed me that it contained about 13 servings for a total of 2,860 calories in the entire bag.
• Peanut Butter M&M’s:  This food label read much the same as peanut.  A serving was ¼ of a cup which is about 24 M&M’s. One serving was 220 calories, and one PB M&M is then about 10 calories, (which, honestly, seems low to me.  I thought the PB M&M’s would be more than the peanut).  This package contained 12 servings for a total of 2,880 calories in the entire bag.
• Pretzel M&M’s:  The new kid on the block, pretzel M&M’s, had an addition to their food label: instead of the confusing ¼ cup serving size, (seriously, who carries measuring cups around with them?) it explains that 1 serving is about 17 M’s, or 10.5 calories per M.  One bag of pretzel M&M’s is about 1980 calories. 
• If you’re keeping track, there’s a grand total of 7,720 calories in the industrial sized candy jar. 

 Dan oh so nicely did the math for me while I attended today’s Person Served conferences:

• “Crunched the numbers. Double checked my math and figured that a person would have to briskly walk 105.27 miles to burn of those calories. That’s the equivalent of walking from here to Mason City, IA. (almost that far, give or take a few miles).”
• Also recall that one pound is 3,500 calories.  If you didn’t get any activity above and beyond what you do day-to-day, and you ate 1 pack of plain M&M’s a day, you’d gain 1 pound every 14.5 days. 

 Now, we’re not in this for the scare tactic.  We realize that no one is going to sit and eat the entire jar of candy on their own and think to walk to Mason City.  But if you take anything away from our project today, focus on what Dan said earlier:  “It’s easy to see why a sedentary lifestyle can get you those extra pounds in a hurry.”  And, while it was probably nutritionally irresponsible of me to leave a bunch of M&M’s where people can get to them, I (Beth) am a firm believer in factoring in some “discretionary” calories in the day just for fun foods.  Did you eat a bunch of candy today?  Then eat some fruit after dinner for dessert. 

 Also, be curious about what you’re eating.  Look at your food labels.  If you don’t understand them, come and ask your questions.   

 And we know that there’s a lot more to weight loss than simple calories-in-calories-out.  Your current weight, height, gender, genetics, medical history and a whole host of other factors play in.  But this weekend, dust off those pedometers and see how far you get.  Are you walking far enough to burn off 1 pack of plain M&M’s?