A wrestler at a high School in Oklahoma wanted to be a heavy weight wrestler bec

Question

A wrestler at a high School in Oklahoma wanted to be a heavy weight wrestler because his, team needed one, but there was n minimum weight of 165 lb, and he only weighed 155 lb. He was taking a chemistry class, so he thought he'd calculate how much sugar he'd have to eat in a month to gain 10 pounds. From combustion data in his chemistry book he found out that most sugars give off 4.000 cal/g of heat from combustion with oxidation, which is what the body does, but in much more controlled chemistry using enzymes He also looked on the internet and found out that 2,000 calories added to your diet will add a pound of weight Given he had a month, he figured he needed to add only 670 calories/day or 170 mg of sugar/day, which really confused him What was his mistake? A 12 oz coke has 33 g of sugar, so how many does he have to drink to gain 10 lb? (And, a rhetorical question, how many cans of coke do you drink in a year?) (My apologies for having dropped a couple of digits. See the correction above It doesn't change the point of the question.) The mistake he made is that Calories for food are not the same as calories in chemistry (physics, etc.). Food Calories are really kilocalories (kcal), so he was off by a factor of 1000 on the weight of sugar he needed a day, meaning he needed to consume and extra 170 g of sugar a day, or an extra 5 cokes daily for a month to gain 10 pounds

Explanation / Answer

The calorie in food terminologies means 1 Kcal

Hence 2000 cal needed to add 1 pound weight means 2000 Kcal is needed.

Now to gain 10 pound the actual calories needed = (2000 Kcal / 1 pound) x 10 pound = 20000 Kcal

He needs to gain weight in 30 days.

Hence Kcal needed to take per day = 20000 Kcal / 30 day = 670 Kcal / day, which is equivalent to 170 g sugar per day.

A 12 oz coke contains 33 g sugar

Hence number of coke need to take per day = 170 g / 33 g/coke = 5 cokes

For a healthy human daily energy requirment = 44 kcal/kg/day

155 lb = 70.3 Kg

hence daily energy requirment = 70.3 Kg x 44 kcal/kg/day = 3093 Kcal/ day

Energy requirment for the whole year =  3093 Kcal/ day x (365 day/year) = 1128945 kcal

670 kcal = 170 g

Hence  1128945 kcal will be equivalent to the mass of sugar = (170 g / 670 kcal) x 1128945 kcal

= 286450 g sugar / year

1 coke has 33 g sugar

Hence nuber of cokes required per year = 286450 g sugar / year / 33 = 8680 coke / year

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