Being moderately overweight is not that bad at all, study says

Thursday November 8, 2007 in: Diet and Exercise Tag(s):

Technorati Tags: diet, weight management, obesity

If you think that being a fat ass makes you a miserable hag then you better think twice. There's a new study determined to give you hope.

Researchers from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia found Americans who are 5 to 10 kilos overweight are less likely to die of heart disease and cancers. A whhhhaaat?!!

This really sounds freaky but this new study really gets on the nerves of some health experts for sure.

The research findings also reveal that those lucky overweights may also be spared from death caused by breast, kidney, pancreatic and colon cancer.

Dr. Katherine Flegal, the lead author of the study said that her team found that overweight was associated with a significantly reduced number of deaths from the aforementioned causes.

The study performed analysis on the statistics of about 2.4 million U.S. adults collected between 1971 and 2004. The researchers are surprised to find that being overweight may be protective from other causes of death not commonly associated to excess weight namely tuberculosis and Alzheimer's disease.

However, the study finds that overweight people still have a higher chance of dying from diabetes and kidney diseases.

Also, the same case still exists for obese people – those who are more than 15 kilos overweight. The study says that they still have a higher risk of death from a variety of illnesses including some cancers and heart disease. Moreover, there are about 400 million grossly overweight people around the world, according to the World Health Organization.

But then again, the researchers are aware that this latest findings might be used as an excuse for an unhealthy lifestyle. That's why Dr. Flegal has this to say:

"I would like to emphasize that our study does not change the basic public health recommendations. You should eat right, get some activity, and do not smoke. Nothing about our study changes those recommendations."

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Fat is where it's at!

I wonder who was behind this study, Oreos or McDonald's??? Honestly, I'm not a doctor, so I can't dispute what Dr. Flegal has to report, but I do work with plastic surgeons all over the country, including one who performs liposuction in Miami (they also perform a lot of post bariatric plastic surgery). Anyway, I read an article on their site when I first started working with them about how being overweight (here in America) is actually no longer a turnoff for the majority of us. What's going on?! First, it's not unattractive and now it's not unhealthy. Something's not right in the states of America.

Anonymous at 8:01pm on Nov 19, 2007

That Bad...

I agree with anonymous. I also work with a plastic surgeon (I'm helping a doc who performs everything from Long Beach breast augmentation to lipo and tummy tucks)... I think the original headline is sums everything up: "Being moderately overweight is not that bad... " Not that bad. But, wouldn't it be better - healthier - to NOT be even moderately overweight. I would like to have the "bad" (even when it's just "not that bad") gone, replaced with "good" or "great."

Rick at 5:18pm on Nov 30, 2007

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