Choking deaths on food in the US

Between 2014 and 2021, Japan's total population declined while US choking deaths on food increased, producing an inverse correlation of -0.9654 across eight data points. The reading that Japan's population decline is somehow protective against American choking hazards has no mechanism, no plausibility, and no data points sufficient to test it. Eight observations of two trends going in opposite directions is not a finding. It is a pair of lines that crossed paths on a graph and had nothing to say to each other.

Japan's population peaked at approximately 128 million in 2010 and has declined since, driven by sub-replacement fertility rates and limited immigration, falling below 126 million by 2021. US choking deaths rose as the American over-65 population expanded. Both are demographic trends—one of contraction, one of aging—operating in different countries through entirely independent population dynamics.

Demographic trends in two different countries will produce correlations whenever they move in compatible directions. The declining population of Japan has no mechanism by which it could affect American dining outcomes, and eight data points cannot conjure one.