Choking deaths on food in the USUS per capita ice cream consumption
As Americans have consumed less ice cream per capita, choking deaths have risen, a negative correlation of -0.979 that sounds like the inverse of the classic ice cream-drowning correlation and is equally meaningless. The ice cream melts, the food lodges, and the chart draws a line between declining frozen dessert consumption and rising demographic mortality with the cool precision of a coefficient that has never experienced brain freeze.
Ice cream consumption declined modestly from about 23 to 21 pounds per capita. Choking deaths rose with the aging population. One smoothly declines, the other smoothly rises, seventeen years. Ice cream is not a choking hazard (it melts). The correlation is driven by opposite monotonic trends across the same period.
Seventeen years of less ice cream and more choking deaths is the inverse of the famous ice cream-drowning correlation, and equally instructive: two trends moving in opposite directions produce a high negative coefficient that means nothing except that time passed and demographics shifted. The scoop melts. The population ages. The chart is served cold.
As an Amazon Associate, getspurious.com earns from qualifying purchases. Learn more.
Want to learn more about why correlations like “Choking deaths on food in the US” vs “US per capita ice cream consumption” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
