weightloss vs hunger

I once read that the amount of money spent on dieting and weightloss products could actually stop world hunger. Of course this is just a figure and doesn't factor in the political and logistical issues regarding stopping world hunger, but it got me thinking.

Then I stumbled across the Stop the Hunger website, which goes a step further into comparing dieting and world hunger. The page is a constant stream of live stats regarding the world population, the number of undernourished people, the number of overweight people, etc. What is perhaps most astonishing is the comparison of the dollars spent on weight-loss programs in the USA today (~$97m) and the cost of feeding the hungry today (~$18m).

In Australia, it is estimated that people will spend $827m on counselling services, low-calorie foods and shakes, diet cookbooks, weight loss guides, dietary supplements and surgery in an effort to lose weight throughout 2012-13.

Now I'm not saying that all of this is a waste of money, but surely someone is trying to link the money spent by the overweight with the needs of the hungry. (Although I imagine that there are plenty of people in the healthy weight range that also spend money on diet products.)

A short google search later and I find out that Zumba started a Great Calorie Drive. Basically, you use the Zumba Fitness app to donate the calories you have burned to people struggling with hunger (through The United Nations World Food Programme).

Unfortunately, this seems limited to calories burned in Zumba classes exclusively.

There are a few bloggers that have encouraged people to eat one bowl of rice for one day (per year) and donate the money they would have spent on food or encouraged people to donate a pound of food for each pound of weight they lose (which seems based on a similar promotion by Subway).

Of course there are other initiatives aimed at reducing hunger, such as Outnumber hunger and P4P, but this is unrelated to the weight loss industry.

I am most interested in turning dollars that would be spent on weight-loss programs or unused gym memberships into dollars for the hungry.

Does anyone know of anything like this in the market already?

- Dani