Tuesday, March 01, 2011

How We Live Now

Some fun stuff in this special section from Sunday's New York Post -- What the Census Won't Tell You About Our Lives. (Click the images to make them readable.) Unsurprisingly, the average height/weight of American men and women -- 5'9", 191 pounds and 5'4", 164 pounds, (dis)respectively -- was the one that interested me most. (I'm 8 inches taller than the average woman and feel fat if I weight more than 164 pounds! Where's the gay stats?!!) In 1960, both men and women were an inch shorter and 25 pounds lighter, which might have something to do with our 34% rate of adult obesity plus 34% of American being overweight but not obese (you probably figured out that that adds up to 68% of American adults being fat).

Some other interesting tidbits:

  • That Ohio was one of the Top 5 states for pool ownership made me laugh -- Arizona isn't on the list, and everyone in Arizona I know has a pool! -- and has me picturing a lot of "above-ground" action.

  • Americans have an average $15,788 in credit card debt per household, which wasn't surprisingly, although pretty horrifying.

  • 62% of households have a pet kind of shocked me (check out how shockingly far ahead cats are than dogs in the totals).

  • Average life expectancy in the U.S. is 78 years, placing us 49th in the world. (Macau is No. 1, at 84.36 years.)

  • Porn is most popular on Sunday (but rarely on Thanksgiving).

  • Times Square is by far the top tourist destination in America, with the Vegas Strip, National Mall and Faneuil Hall, Disneyworld, Golden Gate Recreation Area, Disneyland, Fisherman's Wharf, Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Great Smoky Mountains Park rounding out the Top 10.

  • 70 million Americans own at least one firearm (can't we stab each other like our forefathers?)

  • Five states boast college-graduation rates near 50 percent: Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire seem right, but Colorado and North Dakota were surprising.

  • 2 comments:

    Rocky Mountain High(er Education) said...

    The Colorado thing is no surprise to me. Then again, I live here and am surrounded by educated people.

    Ben from c said...

    Colorado has been up there for at least the last decade. It isn't our that the graduation rates are that good, but we also attract college educated transplants. We are also one of the thinner states (but getting fatter).