Oatmeal and cholesterol Do eating oatmeal reduce cholesterol? An advertisement included the following graph as evidence that the answer is “Yes.”

(a) How is this graph misleading?

(b) Make a new graph that isn’t misleading. What do you conclude about the effect of eating oatmeal on cholesterol reduction?

A graph is provided with $4$ weeks of information and the graph is

The distribution of a category variable is displayed using pie charts and bar graphs. Any set of quantities measured in the same units can be compared using bar graphs. It's a good idea to ask yourself, "What do I see?" when looking at any graph.

Because the y-axis (vertical scale) starts at $196$ instead of $0$, the bar graph presenting the evidence that eating oatmeal lowers cholesterol is misleading. The contrast between the weeks is emphasized as a result of this. Therefore, the bars should start at $0$

By using approximation data from the above bar graph, you can create a new graph that is not deceptive (vertical scale starts at $0$).

The bar graph for the cholesterol point is given below.

On the basis of the graph, it appears that there is little variation in cholesterol levels on a weekly basis. Because of the scale distortion, the previous graph gave a false impression that eating oatmeal lowers cholesterol levels.

As a result, the above graph isn’t misleading and the cholesterol decreases slightly over the $4$weeks.