US Youth Obesity Pattern Analysis
Indiana University
The project uses visualization to create apt dynamic co-related charts which helps to understand the root cause behind the increasing obesity in youth of the US. The results are considered across several youth behavioral categories and factors such as gender, grade, race spread across all states. Overall, the project is though provoking and depicts the need for a better health centric life structure for young adults.
Design
Data Visualization
Youth Obesity Pattern Analysis
The main objective of this visualization is to help the analyst to identify the prime cause of obesity in different groups of the youth population. The groups are based on gender, grade and ethnicity. Also to see if there is any pattern for different states. Few questions we are attempting to address through this visualization project is as below:
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Year wise obesity trend in each state.​
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Year wise obesity trend at country level.
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Year wise obesity trend of each population group both at state and country level
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Influence of race-ethnicity on the behavior of students: fruits and vegetables-behavior, physical activity- behavior, television viewing-behavior and impact on obesity/weight status.
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How does the grade influence the race-ethnicity of the student to impact the various categories of the students like students who have obesity, eat less than 1 fruit a day, eat less than 1 veggies a day, overweight classification, 3+ hrs tv each school day, participate in daily physical education, 1+ hr of daily physical activity , drinking soda/pop min 1 time a day.
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Is there any trend over years to notice the common behavior between students in a state sharing different grades?
Tools
1. Compare the Obesity data across all categories, factors and years.
The following dashboard was created using Tableau. All the components are interlinked to each other and can be sorted using drop down selections. Seeing the overall data is very helpful in terms of understanding the co-relation between the underlying causes of obesity.
2. Which state in the US has the highest percentage of students in grades 9-12 watching 3 or more hours of TV each school day?
The size of the pie chart represents the higher values per year. Looking at the chart, it can be seen that Louisiana has the biggest pie chart with value for 2105 being the highest.
3. For the state of Illinois, what percentage of students in grade 9-12 watch 3 or more of TV?
It looks like the male students watch more TV than the female equivalent. And from the second chart we can conclude that over the years there is a clear decline in students watching TV.
4. For the state of Florida, what percentage of students in grades 9-12 have Obesity?
It can be seen from the first chart that the ratio of obesity between male and female students is dominated by male students being more obese. From the second graph it can be seen that the overall obesity amongst students is increasing each year. It is interesting to see that in the year 2011, the obesity values jumped pretty high and further investigation needs to be done to determine the spike in the numbers.
5. For the state of Delaware, what percentage of students in grade 9-12 consumed fruit less than 1 time daily?
From the first chart, we can see that the female students did not consume enough fruits compared to the male equivalent. From the second chart we see the consumption of fruit is almost similar across students in most races. The races missing might suggest that they don't reside in the state of Delaware.
6. For the state of Louisiana, what percentage of students in grade 9-12 drank regular soda/pop at least one time per day?
It looks like the female students are consuming a little more soda/pop than the male students per day. The second chart suggests that as the student graduate to the next grade their consumption of soda/pop per day is on a slow decline.
7. For the state of Kentucky, what percentage of students in grade 9-12 have an overweight classification?
It can seen from the first chart, the female students are increasingly overweight compared to the male students. From the second chart, we can see that non-hispanic black students are a bit more overweight followed by non-hispanic white students compared to any other race.
8. For the state of South Dakota, what percentage of students in grade 9-12 consume vegetables less than 1 time daily?
In South Dakota, it looks like the vegetable consumption ratio is almost similar across the genders. The non-hispanic white students consume vegetables consistently over the years followed by American Indian/Alaskan Native students and Hispanic students. The data looks incomplete and is not fir for comparing the races for vegetable consumption because may be students moved to other state.
9. For the state of Georgia, what percentage of students in grade 9-12 achieve 1 hour or more of moderate/intense physical activity?
It is pretty evident from the chart that in the state of Georgia, the male students are consistently achieving more physical activity than the female students. Which can also suggest that the potentially the female students might be on the verge of being overweight or other heath conditions because of lack of an active lifestyle. 12th grade students are achieving less activity compared to any other grade, may be they are busy with academics.
10. For the state of Arizona, what percentage of students in grade 9-12 participate in daily physical education?
Gender wise, we can clearly see that the male students actively participate in physical education on daily basis more than female students. Also race wise, we can see quite a lot of American Indian/Alaska Native participate in physical activity followed by hispanic, non-hispanic white and non-hispanic black students.
