The bar chart gives information about the fast food eating habits of Americans in 2003, 2006, and 2013.
Overall, most Americans ate in fast food restaurants once a week or once or twice a month, and the least common habit was to eat there every day. All habits, except visiting restaurants once or twice a month and a few times a year, became less common.
From 2003 to 2006, the proportions of Americans visiting restaurants once a week, several times a week, and a few times a year increased slightly from about 31 to 33%, 17 to 20%, and 13 to 15%, respectively. While the proportion eating once a week remained stable at 15% in 2013, the percentage eating once a week decreased considerably to around 28%.
The shares of Americans going to restaurants every day and not going at all both stayed at below 5% in 2013 after declining marginally between 2003 and 2006. The percentage going once or twice a month also fell initially, but it fell significantly and then grew massively to well above 30%, becoming the highest.
The bar chart (You need to identify what type of chart this is.) gives information about (vague) the fast food eating habits of Americans in 2003, 2006, and 2013. (This is not a good opening paragraph. It does not tell us the units of measure, what the categories are or much else.)
Overall, most Americans ate in fast food restaurants once a week or once or twice a month, and the least common habit was to eat there every day. All habits, except visiting restaurants once or twice a month and a few times a year, became less common. (That is not a good analysis.)
From 2003 to 2006, the proportions of Americans visiting restaurants once a week, several times a week, and a few times a year increased slightly from about 31 to 33%, 17 to 20%, and 13 to 15%, respectively. While the proportion eating once a week remained stable at 15% in 2013, the percentage eating once a week decreased considerably to around 28%. (Comparing the individual bar heights is not a good approach.)
The shares of Americans going to restaurants every day and not going at all both stayed at below 5% in 2013 after declining marginally between 2003 and 2006. The percentage going once or twice a month also fell initially, but it fell significantly and then grew massively to well above 30%, becoming the highest.
You should recognize this type of plot immediately as a frequency distribution chart, and the curves as bell curves.
There is a special vocabulary for this type of plot. Have you studied normal distributions? You didn't use the proper words for this essay.
Draw a curve for 2003 and 2013. Compare the curves.
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Thank you. Yes, I would love to have more information
Frequency distribution
A frequency distribution plots the number of items in each of many categories. Each is a range of possible values, and all together every instance must be in one (only one) of the categories. The categories are arranged on the X-Axis in ascending order.
For example, there is a class of 54 students, and they measure the height of the students. The tallest is 129 cm. The shortest is 114 cm. Eight students were 116 cm. Here is the frequency distribution plot.
In this task, there are three of these plots together on the same chart. One is for 2003, another for 2006 and the third for 2013.
Each year is divided into six categories. Each category has a bar. The height of the bar is the relative frequency of occurrence of its value, or range of values.
If you sum the values in every one of the categories for each year, they add up to 100. (100% accounts for every occurrence.)
2003: 4 + 17 + 31 + 30 + 13 + 5 = 100
2006: 3 + 20 + 33 + 25 + 15 + 4 = 100
2013: 3 + 16 + 28 + 34 + 15 + 4 = 100
This one plots percentages, not actual numbers, so it is a "relative" frequency distribution.
A collection of all data is called "statistics".
These charts often display a "normal distribution", also called a "bell curve."
The shape of the curve is called a bell curve (It has the shape of a large bell) or normal distribution:
Opening paragraph:
The bar graph plots the percentage of Americans who ate in fast food restaurants grouped into six different frequency categories, ranging from low (never or a few times a year) to high (every day or several times per week). Data from three years, 2003, 2006 and 2013, are shown for comparison.
Main features:
1. The mode of the bell curve for 2003 was "once a week" The mode for the 2013 curve was "once or twice a month." That means that Americans were eating out less often.
2. You can add up the percentages for the different categories. So if you add all the categories except "never" you find that most all Americans do eat some fast food. This is the case for all years in the data set.
3. The two extreme categories, "never" and "every day" are about equal for each year.
Overall, the data shows that Americans ate at fast food outlets less often in 2013 compared to 2003. However, most people, well over ninety-five in one hundred, do have fast food at least a few times a year. The percentage who have a meal at one of these places every day is about the same as those who never eat there at all.
In detail, the majority of Americans frequented these restaurants once a week or more in 2003 and 2006, 51% and 56% respectively. It dropped to less than half (47%) by 2013. The two categories with the highest percentages were "once/week" and "once or twice a month", with values ranging from a quarter to a third. In all three years, about 60% of those surveyed fell in these two categories, but in 2013 there were more in "once or twice a month" (33%) compared to the other (27%). The opposite was especially marked for 2006, with a third going once a week and a quarter once or twice per month. The percentage who completely avoid fast food did not change much. It was 5% in 2003 and 4% in the later two surveys. That was also the case for those who had fast food every day, 4% in 2003 and 2-3% in both 2006 and 2013.
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