I think your weird outlier in Illinois is created by a poor-quality dataset (with state-level numbers being extrapolated to individual counties): there are no demographic cut-offs associated with any of Illinois's borders with surrounding states (unlike the IA-MO boundary, which shows up in a whole bunch of data, like election results and religious identification). It would make sense for IL as a state to be less obese than its neighbors, because it has a high number of college-educated adults, but much of the south of the state is very poor and often has high black populations (particularly in Alexander county and St. Clair county, which don't cluster with other very black areas on your map). On specifically *childhood* obesity, Illinois probably clusters with its southern neighbors, according to this map from 2012: https://ci.uky.edu/kentuckyhealthnews/2012/08/31/kentucky-ranks-third-among-states-in/
If there's any state uniquely successful at fighting obesity, it's probably CO, since it seems to me like it does better than we might suspect just from altitude or demographics? Or perhaps not, but anyone who's ever measured this has found CO doing better than any other state, consistently. The IL anomaly is probably not real, on the other hand.
Very interesting stuff! Loved SM TM's series too. Do you plan on writing any more of these? Pretty please with cherry on top?
I think your weird outlier in Illinois is created by a poor-quality dataset (with state-level numbers being extrapolated to individual counties): there are no demographic cut-offs associated with any of Illinois's borders with surrounding states (unlike the IA-MO boundary, which shows up in a whole bunch of data, like election results and religious identification). It would make sense for IL as a state to be less obese than its neighbors, because it has a high number of college-educated adults, but much of the south of the state is very poor and often has high black populations (particularly in Alexander county and St. Clair county, which don't cluster with other very black areas on your map). On specifically *childhood* obesity, Illinois probably clusters with its southern neighbors, according to this map from 2012: https://ci.uky.edu/kentuckyhealthnews/2012/08/31/kentucky-ranks-third-among-states-in/
If there's any state uniquely successful at fighting obesity, it's probably CO, since it seems to me like it does better than we might suspect just from altitude or demographics? Or perhaps not, but anyone who's ever measured this has found CO doing better than any other state, consistently. The IL anomaly is probably not real, on the other hand.