US olive oil consumption

As Americans have consumed more olive oil, more of them have died falling out of bed, a correlation that raises the question of whether Mediterranean diets make people restless sleepers or whether olive oil is somehow making beds more slippery. The coefficient is 0.949 across seventeen years, which is the kind of number that makes you want to check the thread count on your sheets and the expiration date on your extra virgin. Neither the oil nor the bed is responsible. The data, characteristically, does not care.

US olive oil consumption has grown steadily from about 250,000 metric tons in 2005 to over 380,000 by 2021, driven by the Mediterranean diet trend, cooking shows, and the general displacement of butter and vegetable oil by what is perceived as the healthier option. Deaths from falling out of bed—a category that sounds absurd until you learn it kills about 450 Americans per year—have increased as the population has aged. The vast majority of bed-fall deaths occur among people over 65, and the US population over 65 grew from about 37 million to 56 million during this period. Both trends are measuring the same aging, health-conscious population: eating olive oil because their doctor recommended it and falling out of bed because gravity is indifferent to dietary choices.

Seventeen years of olive oil consumption and bed-fall deaths rising together is a story about an aging nation that is simultaneously trying to live healthier and discovering that the hazards of old age do not respond to dietary intervention. The oil is heart-healthy, the bed remains dangerous, and the correlation between them is simply the biography of a generation getting older. Drizzle responsibly.