What is the healthiest state in the continental United States? Take a guess? Have something in mind? Great! What is it?
When looking at some data obtained from The ReadWriteWeb and Tableau Public Challenge website on “Activity Rates and Healthy Living” it had some eye openers. When taking account several factors, it appears that overall Colorado may just be the healthiest state in the union. When looking at adult diabetes and obesity, I would expect that poverty would have a big impact on who suffers from these problems, and the numbers seem to line up with that.
Looking just at adult diabetes and obesity Colorado is a clear outlier on the good side, however their poverty rate is not the lowest. Still there are strong indications that these three factors are related to some degree.
What other factors could be related? Well how about how active people are. Sure enough Colorado is one of the states with the greatest percentage of active adults. Not surprising with all the good skiing, hiking, and other outdoor activities there. It would be interesting to go more in-depth in the type of activities, but the data is not available in what was provided. Another notable; there does not appear to be much to do in Tennessee. (If you live in Tennessee and are reading this, promise me that you will go for a walk afterwards, O.K. I am a little concerned and it would make me feel better.)
Mapping out the counties with some of these factors was also quite interesting. There were very similar patterns with obesity and diabetes, probably not surprising as I keep hearing about these correlations, but WHERE they are highest is intriguing. The last graph of adult diabetes has a pattern that I have seen before. It seems very similar to the map of Killer Tornado Events. Could it be from drinking as a way to cope from these natural disasters? You would think there would be a bit more activity in these areas. (Run away!)
Unfortunately this data is not going into my collection as there really is no time associated with it. When were these statistics taken? I would love to take this and compare it with other factors, but without some further assurance of the source, and time frame involved, it just remains something to play with.
Obesity and diabetes are becoming more and more of a problem these days. Actually it is easy to avoid being overweight by just having the proper diet and exercise.