Slightly Overweight People Live Longer

Thin may be in, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Better, a new study suggests, to have a little fat on your bones. The New York Times reports on an epidemiological study by researchers at that National Cancer Institute and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that suggests that people who are overweight, but not obese, have a lower risk of death than people who are of normal weight. The study also found that only the "extremely obese" saw a marked increase in risk of death. But what is "extremely obese"? Researchers in this study used the government’s standards, which define fatness and thinness according to a "body mass index" correlating weight to height, regardless of sex. According to those standards, 5-foot-8 people weighing less than 122 pounds are underweight. If they weighed 122 to 164 pounds, their weight would be normal, and they would be overweight at 165 to 196, obese at 197 to 229, and extremely obese at 230 or over. The Times points out that the researchers looked only at risk of death, and not at the quality of life of the people studied.