Deaths from falling out of bed in the USUS gluten-free product sales
As gluten-free product sales have grown, bed-fall deaths have risen, adding wheat avoidance to the exhaustive list of consumer trends that correlate with elderly Americans falling off their mattresses. The gluten is removed, the body is removed from the bed, and the chart adds another line item to the most over-correlated mortality statistic in the dataset.
Gluten-free sales grew from about 1 billion to over 7 billion dollars between 2008 and 2021. Bed-fall deaths continued their aging-driven rise. Fourteen data points, both up. The gluten-free consumers and the bed-fall victims are different populations. The coefficient is shape, as always.
Fourteen years of gluten-free and bed falls is the latest entry in the bed-fall series—a franchise that now has more installments than the MCU. The wheat is avoided, the bed is not, and the coefficient is the same 0.98 it always is because the aging population correlates with everything. The label is gluten-free. The correlation is meaning-free.
As an Amazon Associate, getspurious.com earns from qualifying purchases. Learn more.
Want to learn more about why correlations like “Deaths from falling out of bed in the US” vs “US gluten-free product sales” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
