No special effects were used for any of these displays, National Geographic says. The signature overhead shot, in all its glory, is of 12,129 hamburger buns and 5,442 hot dog rolls arranged in the shape of the American flag. Be still, my thumping heart. But where’s the apple pie?

The statistics were compiled in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, based at the Bronx Zoo, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. They’re based on a life expectancy of 77 years 9 months, and a United States population rounded to 301 million. “Human Footprint” tracks supposedly typical consumers from diaper-wearing infancy to medication-dependent old age.

Not surprisingly, Americans continue to out-big-foot everyone else when it comes to consumption. Although only 5 percent of the global population, Americans are said to use more than one-quarter of the world’s energy.

Ms. Vargas dutifully spews out the stats like an old-school adding machine. But it all gets more than a little wearying, once the wow factor has receded. All right, all right, enough with the prolonged shower of a lifetime’s worth of 19,826 eggs sent splattering into an unsightly “omelet of a lifetime,” as she says.

The script is serviceable although at times a bit hackneyed.

“As much as we relish our hot dogs, that’s nothing compared to our love affair with the hamburger,” Ms. Vargas says at one point. She adds, “It’s an ugly fact that Americans spend more on beauty than on education every year.”