American adult obesity climbing alongside the count of fireball meteor reports. Two completely unrelated curves of accumulation: one in the body, one in the witness-report log. Both went up in the same eighteen years.
US adult obesity climbed from about 30 percent in 2005 to over 41 percent by 2022, driven by an unrelated stack of factors: ultra-processed food share, sedentary work, sleep loss, and stress. Fireball reports grew at a similar pace, but for an observational reason: the American Meteor Society's online reporting tool and the spread of dashcams turned every commute into a potential observation post. The number of fireballs has not changed; the number of people in a position to report one has exploded. Two completely unrelated cumulative processes, neither caused by the other.
Two graphs of accumulation. One inside the body, one in the log book. Different stories of getting bigger.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Adult obesity prevalence” vs “Fireball meteor sightings reported” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
