"Super Size Me" Facts--

I heard a funny quote the other day when I told my boyfriend that I was taking Business Statistics 1: "There are three types of lies- lies, damn lies, and statistics." I find this quote to be so funny because it is so true to the nature of statistics.
I was looking on the "Super Size Me" movie website and it claims that "2 out of every three adults are overweight or obese." If every 2 out of 3 adults in America were overweight, that means that about 66% of us are overweight. This didn't seem right to me, so I went back onto google to double check these figures.
I found on a study done by the Journal of the American Medical Association that "obesity has become a nationwide epidemic that effects nearly 1 in 5 adults". This means, according to the American Medical Association that only 20% of American adults are severely overweight. After I found these figures out, I tried to locate where the people from "Super Size Me" found their statistics, but to no prevail. This really made me wonder where they got their information and the accuracy of it because after conducting my own research, it seems that their information was a little skewed in their defense....
Just from this personal research, I have discovered that statistics can be a powerful tool to defend your argument because one can easily attain the results they want by controlling the research group.





(Works Cited:
"Too Many Americans Overweight" www.ismanet.org/pdf/overweight.pdf"Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions" www.supersizeme.com)