Deliver Us Not Into Bad Math

What better way to celebrate National Pizza Day than sharing this sign, which hangs in our local Pizza Hut:

Admittedly, I’ve never been very good with proportions, but even I know that

.

Yet, that’s what’s implied by the statements for $3 and $5 in the sign. Further,

• For $1, you can feed 4 children for 1 day. That’s a daily rate of 25.0¢ per child.
• For $3, you can feed 2 children for 7 days. That’s a daily rate of 21.4¢ per child.
• For $5, you can feed 1 child for 30 days. That’s a daily rate of 16.7¢ per child.

Will the real price per child per day please stand up?

And then I took a look at that last statement — that $10 can feed a classroom for a day — and it really blew my mind. Daily rates of 16.7 to 25.0¢ per child imply that classrooms have 40 to 60 students. I don’t know where these hungry students are, but maybe there should be a secondary campaign to reduce class size?

Though let’s be honest. What really seems to be needed here is an entirely new campaign: