Deaths from falling out of bed in the US

For seventeen years, Americans have been falling out of bed at a rate that tracks almost perfectly with their cheese consumption, achieving a correlation of 0.97. Scientists are baffled, though no scientist has actually looked into this. The most parsimonious explanation is that cheese-induced dreams are particularly vivid and spatially confusing. The least parsimonious explanation involves a cheese industry conspiracy to eliminate its critics one nocturnal tumble at a time.

Both cheese consumption and bed-fall fatalities are driven by the same underlying demographic: an aging US population. The over-65 cohort both consumes more dairy per capita and accounts for the vast majority of fatal falls, including those from beds. Between 2005 and 2021, US per capita cheese consumption climbed from roughly 32 to 40 pounds annually, while the senior population grew by tens of millions. CDC data confirms that fall-related deaths rise steeply with age, making any age-correlated trend a likely parallel to bed fatality statistics.

When two variables share a hidden master variable — in this case, an aging population — they will shadow each other through time like loyal companions. The cheese did not push anyone out of bed; the calendar did.