Digital camera shipments worldwide

Between 2003 and 2022, worldwide digital camera shipments collapsed and American adult obesity climbed, and the two trends have glared at each other across twenty years with a correlation of -0.960 that says they were simply in different moods at the same moment. The cameras disappeared into phones; the waistlines did the opposite. It is not a kind comparison, which is probably why no magazine has run it.

Digital camera shipments peaked at around 121 million units in 2010 and have declined to roughly 7 million as smartphone sensors became good enough to kill the standalone category; US adult obesity, meanwhile, climbed from 30% in 2003 to over 42% in 2022. Both are consequences of the same smartphone era — one killed by it, one arguably worsened by it — as sedentary screen time expanded in exact proportion to the shrinking of the dedicated camera market. It is easy to photograph a meal; it is harder to walk away from the table.

Fewer cameras, fewer walks between them. The phone absorbed both the lens and the legs.