Deaths from falling out of bed in the USUS nutrition and energy bar retail sales
As energy bar sales have grown, bed-fall deaths have risen, the most nutritionally ironic entry in the bed-fall series: the food designed to fuel athletic performance correlating with the most sedentary possible cause of death. The bar is unwrapped by a cyclist, the body is found by a nurse, and the coefficient achieves 0.982 without pausing to note the demographic distance between the two.
Energy bars grew from about 2.5 billion to over 7 billion dollars. Bed-fall deaths rose with the aging population. Seventeen years, both up, same result. The bar consumers (active, young) and the victims (elderly, sedentary) represent opposite ends of the fitness spectrum.
Seventeen years of energy bars and bed falls is the bed-fall correlation that best illustrates the demographic gap: the product is designed for athletes, the statistic measures the elderly, and the chart sees only two lines going up. The macros are optimized. The bed rail is not. The coefficient does not do cardio.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Deaths from falling out of bed in the US” vs “US nutrition and energy bar retail sales” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
