Adult obesity prevalence

As adult obesity has risen, MLB strikeouts have increased, a correlation of 0.977 that connects the waistline of America to the swing-and-miss rate of its baseball players with the batting average confidence of a chart that treats body mass index and batting futility as equivalent measures of American excess. The nation gets heavier, the hitters swing harder, and both trends measure a culture that has decided that more—more food, more power—is always better, even when the results are embarrassing.

Adult obesity prevalence grew from about 32 percent to over 42 percent between 2003 and 2022. MLB strikeouts grew from about 29,000 to over 42,000 per season. Both nineteen-year upward curves. Strikeouts increased because baseball's analytics revolution rewarded power hitting (home runs) over contact hitting (singles), and the trade-off is more strikeouts. Obesity increased because of the usual suspects: processed food, sedentary lifestyles, and caloric abundance. Both trends measure a culture optimizing for extremes rather than moderation.

Nineteen years of more obesity and more strikeouts is a correlation between two American extremes: eating more and swinging harder, both producing diminishing returns that the metrics faithfully record. The plate is full, the bat swings, and both miss the target. The launch angle is calculated. The BMI is measured. Neither is modest.