Story of a dataset
Obviously obesity is a major health risk and is increasingly a talking point in the medical and public health fields. However, visually displaying the data can make the problem more easily understood. I chose to display the data in a map, where higher rates obesity are represented by darker coloration within the corresponding states borders. When displayed like this on a map of the United States, it jumps out to viewers that the Southern United States is far more obese than other regions. Particularly, the Gulf states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana are the most obese in the nation. The data was compiled by Lake County, Illinois but was found on Data.gov. The information primer on obesity was courtesy of the World Health Organization.
How I did it?
I chose to create a map, with higher rates of obesity being colored darker on the map. I feel that this represents the story I was trying to tell, which was that Southern states have a higher rate of obesity, better than a simple bar graph. Although, I did include the bar graph, which was made with Microsoft Excel, within the PowerPoint presentation to give viewers further numerical information. The map of the US was made via Flourish, a data visualization software. I wanted to make a short PowerPoint presentation because it would convey a short primer of what obesity is, with a short analysis of the map and bar graph. I chose to use PowerPoint because I am familiar with the software and it allowed me to create a simple presentation to convey the story using the data I found. I ran into a challenge embedding a PowerPoint presentation, but managed to get into embedded by downloading a plugin EmbedPress, which allowed me to upload a document to my blog post.
Attributions
Information on Obesity from World Health Organization.
Dataset regarding obesity: data.gov
Software used: Flourish
Image in PowerPoint from freepik.com
