All about us

Did you know that Americans drank 10 times as much bottled water in 2004 as they did in 1980, that the divorce rate is at its lowest level since 1970, that 75 percent of college freshman said their main objective was to be financially well off (compared with the 79 percent in 1970 who said they wanted to develop a meaningful philosophy of life), that 27 percent of doctors are women (versus 12 percent in 1980), and that adolescents and adults now spend, on average, 64 days a year watching television? These and many, many other nuggets on the life and times of Americans can be found in the latest edition of the Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States. The abstract is a pretty dense document, though the NYT does a nice job of mining some of the more interesting stats. Also be advised, as noted by the Times, that the statistics can be misleading. For instance, beds rank a close second to bicycles as a source of accidents, but that's only because more people use beds than bikes. Among the other highlights:

Height: More than 24 percent of Americans in their 70s are shorter than 5-foot-6. Only 10 percent of people in their 20s are.

Weight: Americans are still the fattest people on earth, but Mexicans, Greeks, Australians, New Zealanders and Britons are catching up.

Finance: More than half of all American households owned stocks and mutual funds in 2005.