When candy makes size matter (especially when it comes to the important things in life)

By Taylor Scott

January 5, 2007 | Some things are better small. Sports cars, credit card bills, taxes, the time spent paying taxes and credit card bills, number of bad hair cuts, cleaning, even the number of fights you have with a girlfriend should be kept small.

However, sometimes things are better BIG. Monster trucks, paychecks, LoveSacs, holiday presents, basketball and football players, a jail cell, and last but not least candy bars.

Mars Inc. was founded in 1911 as a world-wide manufacturer of confections and other food products. The confections they are most known for are their candy bars. The most popular confection they produce is the Snickers, a milk chocolate covered candy bar layered with caramel, peanuts, and peanut butter nougat. The candy bars are sold in numerous sizes the most well known are fun size, full size and king size.

Fun size candy bars are one third the size of regular candy bars. My concern is why people are buying these less than satisfying candy bars when you need to eat and unwrap three to get the same satisfaction as one regular size candy bar.

Glenn Beck a host at CNN said, "[If] you ask me, fun size candy bars should be the size of a loaf of bread. That's fun!" A writer for CandyAddict.com had this to say about the fun size candy bar:"What, precisely, can be done with this puny showing? One thing only - one bite, a few chews, and down the gullet. How is that more fun than being able to experiment and savor the flavor? They should call them 'so small you can just barely get a hint of flavor before it's gone' size."

Taryn Hansen, a third-year English major, said nine times out of 10 when she opens one of the smaller fun size candy bars, she is always fumbling with the tiny candies and ends up dropping them on the floor. If the candy happens to make it to the mouth she remains unsatisfied and wanting more so she goes for a second, third . . . tenth and before she knows it she is buried in wrappers and would probably have been happy with one regular sized candy bar.

Dave Hall, a current student, said he likes the fun size candy bar because you can shove the entire thing in your mouth. I pointed out that with the full size candy bar you can do that twice and still have some left over and less to unwrap.

Certain things are meant to be small. Sports cars can go faster if they are lower to the ground, streamline and less weight. No one enjoys receiving a large bill or paying massive amounts in taxes when they could be doing other things. Even, cleaning, which must be done, isn't fun. So if all this is true what is so fun about the fun size candy bar? Wouldn't a more suitable name have been: "eat three to achieve desired effect."

Maybe it was named the "fun size" as a joke, or to trick people into picking them up off the shelf. It could be named fun because the fewer you have the less time you will spend working them off at the gym, but who eats just one? After the hassle of tearing off all the wrapping and only finding the smallest morsel, the disappointment at the sheer size of the chocolate candy bar forces you to eat one after the other after the other. Now, who could say this sort of depression caused by candy wasn't fun? Don't even get me started on the miniature sized candy bars.

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