For years, often without us noticing, the media has used some fairly consistent equivalents for heights, lengths, areas and volumes. As long as 50 London buses parked end to end, the area of 10 football pitches, 5 times taller than Big Ben, or I think most commonly, volume expressed as equivalent to so many Olympic sized swimming pools.
Well this week another comparative has appeared, I think for the first time, to represent the typical teenage consumption of fizzy drinks. Cancer Research UK has undertaken a survey to calculate the typical consumption of sugary fizzy drinks by children and teenagers. It found that on average teens guzzled 234 cans of fizz a year, lower than I would have expected, as I consume at least two cans a day, that’s a tad over 700 a year! But then when I was a kid in the ‘sixties’ 2 cans a year was closer to the mark.
Anyway rather than running with 234 cans in their press release this consumption was measured as the equivalent to a bath tub full in a year, conjuring up images of grumpy teens sitting upright in a bath full of sticky cola with a large straw! The maths does stack up though. With 234 cans each of 330ml equating to 77 litres of fizz. Actually they were fairly tight on volumes with this comparison as the typical bath holds closer to 170 litres of water when full to the overflow, but 77 litres would still just about cover their modesty!
Having counted again my consumption is actually closer to 3 cans a day averaged over the week, so my annual volume is closer to being equated to Olympic sized swimming pools I fear!
Written by: Colin from KSV.