How Wearing Jeans Can Save the World

I ran across this article about healthy habits you can develop, and interestingly enough, one of the twelve habits listed was "wear casual clothes whenever possible".

No, this is not a joke. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse conducted a study for the American Council on Exercise that showed wearing jeans and other casual clothing to work resulted in an 8 percent increase in physical
activity and nearly 500 more steps compared to more formal attire days. Those
casual Fridays—and Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays—translated to an extra 25 calories burned per day, too.

Hmmm...who would have guessed that our office-living, suited lifestyles would contribute to the downfall of America's health? But it gets more interesting:

Considering you must burn 3,500 calories to lose one pound, the added activity from casual clothing workdays could potentially offset the average weight gain experienced by Americans of 0.4 to 1.8 pounds annually.

What they are saying is that Americans on average gain exactly the amount of weight that they could lose if they simply started wearing jeans to work. In other words, we could reduce or eliminate the obesity epidemic in America just by switching to jeans.

Of course, I've always known that wearing anything other than jeans is just wrong.

-micah