What was to be revisited

A few weeks ago I presented my theory that the rise in obesity is the true cause for the falling crime rate in this country, as those who cannot get out of bed or off the rascal are less likely to go snatching purses or smashing in heads.

But I provided no data to support this argument and this omission has bee gnawing at me.  So I became concerned that if this omission continued to gnaw at me it would itself become obese, and I resolve now to correct it.

Borrowing obesity data from my friends at the CDC and crime data from the FBI, I have learned that I was...

Incorrect.  It's hard to say, but it feels good to get it out there. Here's what else I learned:

Murder and Obesity

If you live in the state of Mississippi, not only are you criminally liable for a waste of consonants ('Misisipi' would be more economical) you are more likely to be obese than in any other state.  You are also more likely to be murdered 3rd only to 1st place District of Columbia (17.5 murders in 100K), and 2nd place Louisiana (11.2 murders in 100K).  And D.C. is one of the fittest in the data set with the 4th lowest prevalence of obesity.

Taking a wider view through regression analysis, I see that the opposite of my earlier theory is true. In fact, as the prevalence of obesity increases in a state so does the murder rate.  For every four % points of obesity prevalence, another person in a group of 100K loses their life (p-value = .048). 

My alternative hypothesis then, is that we chubby fellows are easier to kill.  Or, when fit young gangsters draw down in the streets, larger human obstacles are unfortunate collateral damage. 

Burglary and Obesity

This part was interesting.  Besides murder, no other offense could be predicted based on obesity with any statistical significance except for burglary whose p-value was 0.000.  So, there is no visible relationship between obesity and rape, robbery, aggravated assault, property crime, larceny-theft, or motor vehicle theft.  But for some reason fat states are burgled states. For every % point of the population that is flagged as obese, 39.6 locations per 100K are burgled.   

I dug into whether this was related to the Hamburgler mafia, but so far no leads.
Another possibility is that we chubsters are always going out to eat and while we are ordering the number 4 super-sized, our indented couches and drawers of rings that have long since ceased to fit on our fingers are being spirited away to pawn shops with wide doors.

Future Analysis
I went ahead and admitted to being wrong, but that is only because I want to go to lunch.  I am too hungry to finish the analysis,  the next step would be to see how changes in obesity by state over time are related to changes in crime rate over time.  But instead, I'm going to go see how the levels of my hunger change over the courses of a meal.