That graph is highly suspect, at best. The data seems cherry-picked to me. Why are there no African or South American countries?

I honestly don't know what conclusion I'm supposed to draw, because I see little correlation. It's too noisy and doesn't account for other factors like average number of school/work hours and availability of public transportation.

I see we in New Zealand are on the edge of trend, with about the same time eating as France and much more weight. Must be all our pies, and of course the fush'n'chups. ;)

BS bs bs bs! I have lived in Europe for many years and I can testify Europeans, especially the French, spend many more hours eating and lingering at a table than Americans who are in such a hurry to eat and running off to the next situation, meeting, eating on the go all the time. This is totally fabricated by a blogger and then passed around to be truth? Ridiculous!

D, the graph shows that the French (and indeed all of the European countiries) spend more time eating than the US. So what are you calling BS on?

Also, I agree with Sarah in part, there are many other factors that effect obesity--such as teh typs of food that are availible to the poor in each country. But also I have noticed in my own life that spending time to eat results in better nutrition and healthier bodies. (but is def. not a sole or most of the cause)

But tml, if you look at the graph, the Canada has half the obesity rate of the US and yet spends the same or less time eating? If there is any correlation beyond the anecdotal, it must be a very very very weak one.

I agree, that is why I noted that in my own life if I have sit down instead of drive by meals I heat healtier (I am obease, so either way I contribute to the obesity) as apposed to pointing out a constant direct link. I also wonder about the availibliity and eating culture of Canada as opposed the the US. I live in South Texas, fats are a HUGE part of what we eat, and we have protions that are roughtly 3 times what they should be. Also almost all gatherings are accompanied or the direct result of food and beer. Thus one could easily say that in my location there is an inverse connection.
I also think that eating culture in the US is far to diverse to actually plot it as a whole.

I think this data set contributes to further disproving the link between eating habits and body weight (as does much other research, btw).
Notice how the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all exhibit similar 'obesity levels'? The population of each is predominantly of white, European ancestry. The US? Mostly white with large African and Latin@ populations, which would push the average rate upwards (notice Mexico's position). East Asian populations at the very bottom, similar range, in spite of differences in eating habits.
What this graph supports is a conclusion that would be a 'no brainer', based on scientific evidence as well as lived experience, if we didn't live within a fat-phobic society which tries (and, unfortunately, largely succeeds) to convince people that weight differentials are the result of dietary habits and choices.
Gene expression can only be affected to a limited extent, in most cases, by food consumption changes. We primarily inherit and transmit our 'weighted' bodies through reproduction, not through what and how we eat.

Yeah, drawing a trendline on that graph is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Also, when are we going to get past BMI as a measure of fatness? I'm a little grumpy about this because I'm tall and muscular. I can see my 6-pack, but the BMI charts call me obese. I wonder how long I spend eating.

Body fat % is a far more accurate indicator.

Not that other factors don't play a major (perhaps greater) role, but if you eat slower you give your stomach time to convey a sense of fullness to your brain. So if you eat slowly, rather than stuff your face really fast, you will get a sense of fullness before you have crammed down so many calories. So that is one argument why time spent eating may be one direct causal factor in obesity

@ Sarah TX,

The reason you don't see Latin American, African, Middle-east, Central Asian, South Asian, and South East Asian countries (nor China) is that, if you look at the point near the middle of the graph, you will note that it says: "OECD 18." Since there are 30 OECD full-member countries (look it up on Wikipedia), then one can only assume that 12 aren't included for some reason. In any case, from what I can tell, if my assumption is correct, then for some reason Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Switzerland. Not exactly the "cherry picking" you seem to be implying from your comment.

@tml, I think you're right about the regionality of eating in the US. In addition, a perhaps more accurate map would break the US, Canada, and (perhaps even) Mexico into regions that better-mimic the geographic area (or population) of other OECD nations. Lumping all regions of the US into one point is like having a map with only one dot for EU, instead of its constituent countries.

@Vidya, notice how countries from Switzerland eastward and southeastward within Europe weren't included? What does that mean? Do these peoples eat a significantly different diet than the rest of the OECD countries? Hmm...

@Duran, yes, drawing the trendline without reporting a regression coefficient is like putting lipstick on a pig, especially since I doubt that the numbers were normalized in any way (i.e., by population size) or show their own distributions along the X and Y axes (since the distributions about the mean are perhaps more interesting than the mean itself).

Interesting correlation, but I too would like to see where the data is from. I think it may be a little dated. I thought Australia had the highest percentage of obese people now? (article link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article4171160.ece)

@ Katie: You might be right, but the above could be correct, too, since the article uses "obese" as a BMI of >25. The above shows percent of population with a BMI of >30. If we assume that the above values are up-to-date, then there are two things that we might deduce:

1) Americans have once again taken the crown (but the hand-back didn't come with the great announcements that it did when the US "lost" the crown).

2) More Americans are "more obese" (i.e., BMI>35) than Australians...

Both of these options are quite troubling (although for different reasons). However, dated or no, I think the interesting thing would be (as others have indicated) to see how OECD countries (showing all 30 countries) stack up against other "developing" and "underdeveloped" countries. (And showing the range along the X and Y axes would be nice, too.)

If nothing else, this is a good illustration of how to evaluate statistics. Note, for instance, that according to the source:

It must be kept in mind that, to varying degrees, time-use surveys' results cannot be regarded as completely accurate in terms of measuring time allocation trends during periods of sickness and/or holidays. Up to date time-use surveys with sufficient information for this study are also only available for 60% of OECD countries (the 18 countries analysed in this chapter) and their methodologies are quite varied.

That's not the most encouraging statement of accuracy. Note, too, in the source of the obesity data:

This classification [i.e., BMI] may not be suitable however for all ethnic groups.... For most countries, estimates of overweight and obesity rates are based on self-reports of height and weight from health interview surveys.

So again, you've got some indication that (a) BMI, for all of its other faults, is particularly inaccurate in this case, and (b) the data aren't entirely scientific.

Taking two highly imperfect statistics and combining them into a fairly dispersed graph...well, color me unimpressed.

@tml--I agree about the U.S. being diverse. I think Canada is similar to northern states. I went to Mississippi once for a week and that was different. I could not wait to have a huge salad when I got home. Here too we have diversity. As far as I've heard, British Columbia is the healthiest province while the east coast provinces are the least healthiest.

If you take out U.S. and Mexico, that graph seems to have almost no correlation.

I think the fitted curve is not very useful, but it is interesting to look at some clusters within the data. For instance, the North American countries are all on the far-left of the graph: apparently the cultural norm is to spend very little time eating, yet the obesity rates vary greatly. On the other hand, obesity rates for the English-speaking countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand) are higher as a group than the other European countries, yet eating times in this group vary greatly. And finally, Japan and Korea are way below the European cluster in obesity rates, despite having very average eating times. I think exploring the details behind these clusters would be more interesting than trying to assign a generic explanation.

"Notice how the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all exhibit similar ‘obesity levels’? The population of each is predominantly of white, European ancestry. The US? Mostly white with large African and Latin@ populations, which would push the average rate upwards (notice Mexico’s position)."

This does not bear out at all if you actually look at the cultural make up of the countries. The UK and Australia have much higher levels of "ethnically" white than either Canada or New Zealand. Whereas Canada, New Zealand and the United States have about the same rate of "white" to "minority".

Furthermore New Zealand's largest minority group are the Native Maori. Although I can not find an exact stat for the number of Maori who are labelled "obese" but they have two and a half times the amount of death from cardiovascular disease and two and a half times the diagnosis of diabetes compared to the general population. Yet New Zealand is not skewed wildly high like the US.

I can not find an exact stat for the number of Maori who are labelled “obese”

41%, according to the first Google hit for "maori obesity".

Lance, I described it as "exact" because I could not find any consistency. Numbers varied from as little as 25% to as much as 65%. The New Zealand Ministry of Health can't even seem to come to the same conclusion, that section states 41% whereas the section concentrating specifically Maori health has no statistic higher than 39% for any age or gender group. The stats for cardiovascular disease and diabetes stayed fairly consistent throughout the sources.

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