I think my parent comment's point, that the premise "marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks" hasn't actually been shown, stands. Sure, the average doesn't tell us much, but it does tell us that consumption is really, really low. The more you push consumption levels up to realistic amounts for some people, the more other people you have to admit will never touch a fish stick in their lives.

It's like they say: the average American is half male, half female, and has 1.9 children.

It actually varies by year and region with a slightly higher than half percentage being male https://ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio

No, not in the US. Most Americans are women. China and India skew the global percentages.

The modal American is the more correct term I guess. Mode is a type of average, so it works out.

I think what we're getting from this is that the modal American doesn't eat fish sticks in a typical year, since the mean American eats half a serving.

It's likely that modal group is so large that the median American doesn't eat any in a typical year, either.

For the record: I have eaten 0 fish sticks in 2020, so far, and expect that the record will stand.

I think the average American doesn't understand averages.