correlations between obesity and christianity

[zencycle]

OK, in "what is christian about santa", Flying gorilla got me going,
and I couldn't help myself

In:
http://groups.google.com/group/atheism-vs-christianity/msg/c1fc3a3e7df16cb0?hl=en

On Dec 21, 12:28 pm, flying gorilla <ryan.kle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Santa is white and obese. What could be more Christian than that?

I'll leave the race issue alone for now, and focus instead upon what I
had thought was a correlation between obesity and ignorance.
DISCLAIMER - I don't think there is a causal relationship between
obesity, intelligence, and faith. I know quite a few quite rational
and intelligent people that struggle with weight issues, as well as
quite a few exceptionally fit people with deep religious beliefs and/
or <ahem> 'limited intellectual capacity'. That said, I'll leave it to
the reader to determine the rationale of the striking correlation in
the data presented below.

According to information culled by CalorieLab from the CDC’s
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System database the top 10 fattest
states in 2009 are:

State % Obese or Overweight

1 Mississippi 70.2
2 alabama 68.1
3 Tennessee 68.9
4 west Virginia 67.5
5 louisiana 67.6
6 Oklahoma 67.4
7 Kentucky 66.9
8 Arkansas 66.5
9 south Carolina 65.7
10 North Carolina 65.3

http://calorielab.com/news/2010/06/28/fattest-states-2010/

According to a 2008 Gallup poll that asked "Is religion an important
part of your daily life?"

The top 10 most religious states are:

State % of respondents answering 'yes'.

1 mississippi 85
2 alabama 82
3 south carolina 80
4 tennessee 79
5 louisiana 78
6 Georgia 76
7 North Carolina 76
8 Oklahoma 75
9 kentucky 74
10 texas 74

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114022/State-States-Importance-Religion.aspx

So 4 of the top 5 most religious states are also 4 of the top 5
fattest states.

"Not so fast" you say? What about the "leanest VS least religious",
you ask?

Ok, the top 10 leanest states are:

State % Obese or Overweight

10 New Jersey 61.8
9 Montana 62.0
8 Utah 57.9
7 Rhode Island 61.5
6 Vermont 58.1
5 Hawaii 57.8
4 Massachusetts 57.4
3 District of Columbia 51.7
2 Connecticut 58.9
1 Colorado 55.6

And the 10 least religious states are

State % respondents answering 'yes'

10 Connecticut 55
9 Nevada 54
8 Rhode Island 53
7 Oregon 53
6 Washington 52
5 Alaska 51
4 massachusetts 48
3 maine 48
2 new hampshire 46
1 vermont 42

so 4 of the top ten lean states are also the least religious.

See a correlation? for those of you statistically challenged, compare
these two graphics from the websites listed above:

http://calorielab.com/news/wp-images/post-images/fattest-states-2010-big.gif

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114022/State-States-Importance-Religion.aspx#1

It's interesting how very similarly the two maps are color graded. So,
if you want to hang around with a bunch of skinny atheists, head to
massachusetts which ranked 4th on both the leanest and least
religious, but, if fat christians are more your ilk, Mississippi is
your mecca, topping both the fattest and most religious lists, I guess
'the lord will provide', eh? I wonder if there's a First Church of
Christ's Corpulence in Biloxi?

Interesting to note Utah, which ranks 14th in most religious and 8th
in most lean, but does that mean god wants mormons to be the
healthiest? Come to think of it, I'm trying to remember the last time
a fat mormon knocked on my door...

* NB - just in case you noticed, the % overweight or obese doesn't
quite correlate with the rankings. CalorieLab actually ranks by a 3
year obesity average, rather than a straight 'how fat are you now'
metric. But, as you may be able to guess, it doesn't exactly skew the
results or the correlation.

[zencycle]

On Dec 21, 4:29 pm, zencycle <zency...@bikerider.com> wrote:
>
>
> for those of you statistically challenged, compare
> these two graphics from the websites listed above:
>

> http://calorielab.com/news/wp-images/post-images/fattest-states-2010-...
>
> http://www.gallup.com/poll/114022/State-States-Importance-Religion.as...

As a follow-up, this report was published by the AP:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101221/ap_on_re_us/us_military_exam

The Map is here:

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/US-map-shows-percentage-failed-aptitude-tests-each-state-applicants/photo//101221/480/urn_publicid_ap_org_e11975845e594303a0bf23019de2359a//s:/ap/20101221/ap_on_re_us/us_military_exam

As noted in the previous message, note the color shading, and how this
map closely aligns with the other two.