More time in school = less obesity?

• Position: Graph Exercise

Medical doctors and other experts in health care have been warning Americans for decades about the problem of obesity. For the most part, they have focused on the obvious--the dangers of eating too much high-calorie and high-fat food, and the "couch potato" syndrome. (Most Americans don't exercise enough to burn off the calories they consume.) Now comes a study that shows a link between obesity and education--or, rather, the lack of it. The graph below shows the percentage of obese people in four groups, from those with less than a high school education to college graduates. As the data indicate, groups with higher levels of education tend to have smaller percentages of obesity. Use the data in the graph to answer the questions below.

1. This graph shows a rise in obesity levels for all of the listed groups in the years from 1991 to 2001. What is the percentage-point increase for people with less than a high school education?

   (a) 15

   (b) 7

   (c) 10

   (d) 20

2. In which year were two of the groups closest in terms of the percentage of people in each group who were obese?

   Which two groups were they?

   and

3. Obesity among the college graduate group rose--by percentage points between 1991 and 2001.

4. Two groups tied for the greatest percentage-point increase in obesity levels between 1991 and 1998. Identify those two groups.

   --and--

5. Suppose obesity in the Some-College group rose in 2002 by the same...