Obesity overstated
2005-04-20 15:14:51.894443+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Obesity Danger May Have Been Overstated. Um, yeah. Okay, I hike once a week and take the occasional bike ride, so maybe I'm a little more athletic than some, but I'm no gym monkey or distance runner. If I round up on my height, I'm a little above the middle of my suggested BMI range, and, according to my fancy dancy measures body fat by impedance electronic scale, if I got towards the bottom of that range I'd be in the single digits of percent body fat, way into the "risking heart damage" range of anorexia.
The new analysis found that obesity — being extremely overweight — is indisputably lethal. But like several recent smaller studies, it found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight.
(Mark V had a link to the JAMA article)