Overweight human beings are the equivalent of an extra 242 million people on earth.

According to a new study (via Reason.com).

Although the largest increase in population numbers is expected in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, our results suggest that population increases in the USA will carry more weight than would be implied by numbers alone," researchers wrote.

You know, I don't think an extra 242 million people sounds like that much. (Only 17 million tons!) But — and this is a big but — if these oversize people are in the U.S., they're going to move around in cars, and the more weight they move, the more fossil fuel they consume, the bigger the carbon footprint. So extra weight in America has a greater environmental effect than extra weight in places where people don't engage in so much commuting and traveling.