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Information Junkies Wanna Know… More

February 5, 2010 •

Inter­est­ing fac­toids, like how many Amer­i­cans prac­tice yoga, spread like wild­fire across the Web and blo­gos­phere. But get­ting any per­spec­tive on those fac­toids can be much harder to find, and in some cases, impos­si­ble.

This morn­ing I uncov­ered a web-based infor­ma­tion vor­tex when I tried to find out how many Amer­i­cans cur­rently prac­tice yoga. I fell into a cir­cu­lar spi­ral, with no end point, and lost track of time while try­ing to find out more. I found numer­ous blogs and news arti­cles pub­lished around the world in 2009, all cit­ing a fac­toid released by the Yoga Jour­nal based on a poll con­ducted by Roper Research:

A recent Roper poll, com­mis­sioned by Yoga Jour­nal, found that 11 mil­lion Amer­i­cans do yoga occa­sion­ally and 6 mil­lion per­form it reg­u­larly.

Source: A Jan­u­ary 2009 arti­cle pub­lished by Reuters. This arti­cle can be down­loaded from Yoga Jour­nal. More detailed infor­ma­tion is not pub­licly avail­able from Yoga Jour­nal (at least not by online means).

None of the jour­nal­ists or blog­gers who refer to this fac­toid can explain what is meant by “reg­u­lar” ver­sus “occa­sional” prac­tice. (The Reuters arti­cle released by Yoga Jour­nal does not define these dis­tinc­tions.)

What’s Interesting Is What They Don’t Say

Hav­ing found so many ref­er­ences to the same slim source, I find myself intensely curi­ous about the ques­tions that are not answered:

  • Does the fac­toid refer only to Amer­i­cans who live in the US, or does it include Cana­di­ans too?
  • How many men prac­tice yoga?
  • How many peo­ple, by age group, prac­tice yoga? Are peo­ple trend­ing older or younger?
  • How often do reg­u­lar prac­ti­tion­ers prac­tice yoga, and why?
  • How do occa­sional prac­ti­tion­ers dif­fer from reg­u­lar prac­ti­tion­ers?
  • What fac­tors might moti­vate some­one to shift from occa­sional to reg­u­lar prac­tice?
  • How many classes do reg­u­lar prac­ti­tion­ers take on a weekly or monthly basis?
  • How often do reg­u­lar yoga prac­ti­tion­ers do their asanas at home ver­sus in a class envi­ron­ment?
  • Are occa­sional prac­ti­tion­ers more likely to attend class, or fol­low a DVD at home, or run through their own set of asanas at home?
  • How do their spend­ing habits dif­fer?
  • Is yoga prac­tice spread evenly across house­hold income lev­els, or are there inter­est­ing pat­terns?
  • What about edu­ca­tional lev­els?
  • What are the regional vari­a­tions? Coastal or urban dwellers ver­sus “Heart­land?”
  • How many peo­ple teach yoga?
  • What’s the (for­give the expres­sion) “viral impact” of reg­u­lar prac­ti­tion­ers? How many new­com­ers become yoga prac­ti­tion­ers as a result of refer­rals by friends?

You can comb through 3 pages of Google search results and find noth­ing beyond cita­tions of the same fac­toid, with point­ers to the same Reuters arti­cle and the same one-sen­tence fac­toid.

Nowhere is there any in-depth infor­ma­tion about the actual poll: when it was con­ducted, how many peo­ple were sur­veyed, using what method­ol­ogy, how sta­tis­ti­cally valid the sam­ple is, etc., etc. There’s no infor­ma­tion about the spe­cific ques­tions posed in the sur­vey.

The final report from Roper is not read­ily avail­able online, most likely because it was pro­pri­etary research for Yoga Jour­nal, con­ducted for rea­sons that aren’t explained. (We can guess: for adver­tis­ing rate cards.)

But it leaves us hun­ger­ing for more… It would have been a real ser­vice to the yoga com­mu­nity for Yoga Jour­nal to have shared deeper insights than the slim fac­toid that is cur­rently cir­cu­lat­ing around the Inter­net. It’s hard to believe they would com­mis­sion research from Roper sim­ply to find out how many peo­ple prac­tice yoga…

Per­haps the next time they com­mis­sion research they’ll struc­ture the deal to per­mit a broader shar­ing of results.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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