Minutes Per Day Eating and Obesity
by Rachel Weidinger
Today, I am far too enamored with this chart. To the point of not caring about the data behind it, and being really ready to allow correlation be causation.
Catherine Rampell writing for the NYT
On Monday, in posting some of the data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Society at a Glance report, I noted that the French spent the most time per day eating, but had one of the lowest obesity rates among developed nations.
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.
Here I’ve plotted out the relationship between time the average person in a given country spends eating and that country’s obesity rate (as measured by the percentage of the national population with a body mass index higher than 30).
How much time do you give yourself permission to eat in? Do you skip breakfast, eat lunch at your desk, and eat dinner out? I often do, and I'm utterly obsessed with food.
Last night, Michael Pollan shifted something in my consciousness when he said (about U.S. school lunch programs) if you give kids hamburgers and tater tots and 10 minutes to eat them, you're educating lifelong fast food consumers. Oh. Of course we are. And brilliantly.
I'd be most grateful for thoughtful push back on my chart crush in the comments. It can't possibly be this simple, right?
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