USPS mail carrier dog bite incidents

It is a curious fact, and one that ought to trouble us more than it does, that as Americans have grown steadily less inclined to bite postal workers, they have simultaneously lost interest in eating compressed oats and whey protein in bar form. The universe, it appears, maintains a perfect ledger: for every dog bite prevented through some combination of better training, leash laws, or perhaps just national exhaustion, one nutrition bar goes unpurchased. One wonders what cosmic accountant is keeping track.

The most likely culprit is that both trends are passengers in the same economic vehicle. Between 2016 and 2022, the US population grew modestly while discretionary spending on premium food products—particularly among the gym-conscious demographic most likely to buy energy bars—fluctuated with employment rates and wage growth. Meanwhile, dog bite incidents correlate strongly with pedestrian foot traffic, which dropped during pandemic lockdowns when people stopped walking around enough to encounter dogs, and also when they stopped commuting to offices where they might have nervously eaten a protein bar at their desk. The shift is roughly equivalent to 15 million fewer snack-sized bars sold while dog bites fell by around 200 incidents per year.

We are creatures who believe the universe speaks to us in numbers, when really it's just speaking to itself, and we happen to be eavesdropping on conversations between unrelated economic conditions. The data suggests nothing except that when fewer people walk the streets, fewer dogs bite them, and they also buy fewer convenient foods. Pattern and causation are not the same thing, though they wear convincing disguises.