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Being Slightly Overweight May Lead To Longer Life
Hugh Pickens writes "Findings of a new study show that underweight people and those who are extremely obese die earlier than people of normal weight — but those who are only a little overweight actually live longer than people of normal weight. 'It's not surprising that extreme underweight and extreme obesity increase the risk of dying, but it is surprising that carrying a little extra weight may give people a longevity advantage,' said one of the coauthors of the study. 'It may be that a few extra pounds actually protect older people as their health declines, but that doesn't mean that people in the normal weight range should try to put on a few pounds.' The study examined the relationship between body mass index and death among 11,326 adults in Canada over a 12-year period. The study showed that underweight people were 70 percent more likely than people of normal weight to die, and extremely obese people were 36 percent more likely to die. But overweight individuals defined as a body mass index of 25 to 29.9 were 17 percent less likely to die than people of a normal weight defined as a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9. The relative risk for obese people was nearly the same as for people of normal weight. The authors controlled for factors such as age, sex, physical activity, and smoking. 'Overweight may not be the problem we thought it was,' said Dr. David H. Feeny, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research. 'Overweight was protective.'"
Someone with a high BMI might be overweight - or they might be in really good shape and have lots of muscle. Just something to think about.
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Then let me ask this. If slightly overweight seems to be healthy, then how was the "ideal" weight range determined?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Sounds to me like the definition of "over-weight" is based on appearance instead of health.
Now I have an excuse to not lose those "extra pounds" my wife has been complaining about!
As someone who has been extremely underweight (body fat percentage down to 3.4%), 50 pounds overweight, and also a track runner in good shape, I can agree with this. Underweight is by FAR the worse: you feel absolutely horrible because your body doesn't have the nutrients you need to rebuild your body and keep it in good shape. It took me years to completely recover from that. There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning and feeling just as bad as when you went to bed because your body hasn't been able to repair itself in the night.
If you are the exact weight you need to be, then you need to have a very well balanced diet, that includes all the nutrients you need in the proper proportions. Otherwise, obviously, you are going to be missing a few nutrients you need.
If you are a little overweight, it's not nearly as hard to have a balanced diet: you can have a higher percentage of carbohydrates and lower percentage of protein in your diet and still be ok, because you are eating more than you need of both. It is more flexible and easier, even if less attractive.
And don't forget to eat broccoli. You're going to have to eat a lot of beef and wheat and other foods to make up for the nutrients you are not getting in green vegetables. That can put you far overweight, especially as you age.
Qxe4
I can see that the intent of the article will lead to immense amounts of false justification. See, the majority of people that are overweight usually arrive at that state from extended periods of poor eating habits (or lots of drinking), inactivity or a combination of both.
It also appears that both articles base their study largely on BMI, which is well-known for being an outdated indicator of health in relation to weight. It works for those that are not athletic or abnormal, but is unreliable for anyone in those two categories. What might have been a better criterion for this study was body fat, which correlates much better to a person's weight.
Intuitively, I agree with the point made here. From the little that I know about nutrition, I've read that having some extra weight (apart from lean body weight and the necessary amount of body fat) helps the body function much better in everyday situations. Should this reach mass media, I'm almost positive that this, amongst other things, will be the excuse for those that don't wish to consider improving their health and lifestyle choices.
Oh well. Mental masturbation never fails to relieve.
I'm sure you're feeling really smart now, having repeated the endless slashdot correlation does not prove causation meme. It's so great that every 14 year old slashdotter seems to know more about statistics than scientists do.
You're even closer to your "best of slashdot" award by not even reading the summary, or not knowing what "corrected for physical activity" means. But beware: the hundreds of "BMI is stupid because I'm not fat/It's all muscle/my bones are heavy" commenters are on your heels. It's surprising that there's not a single really overweight person commenting here, considering that 90% of overweight (by BMI) are simply fat. But maybe, just maybe, all the geeks here are secret superheros.
Fleur de Sel
"They" say being slightly overweight leads to a longer life than "normal" weight. Perhaps the reality is "they've" defined normal a little too low.
As long as you had food, water, and pr0n you could live forever on your computer chair.
Yeah, if you like bedsores on your ass!
;)
There aren't enough details to decide but I could understand how being slightly overweight could be beneficial to women in particular. There's a reason why women like these and this were considered the most attractive in antiquity. Chubby is coming back in style
Even today many guys like me prefer chubby women - they're softer to cuddle with, they tend to have bigger and more plump breasts, they're curvature is accentuated and their plumpness makes them look "cuter", they're better-equipped to have healthy babies, and (in my experience) they have more orgasms. The homos out there are aware of the popularity of "bears".
I'm glad that the starving, anorexic "heroin-chic" fad is going out the door. One can be fit and comfortable without having to go hungry or be unattractively obese. Vanity, like eating, is unattractive in excess.
It's not that bad. The igloo I grew up in, in Edmonton, worked pretty good at insulating us against the cold.
I remember coming in off the ice-flow, after spending the day hunting sea-lions for food and fuel-oil, the igloo was so warm I had to pretty much strip off all my clothing.
But now that I've moved to Vancouver, where we've got these new-fangled things called 'houses', I find that I'm expected to remain mostly clothed both indoors and out. And my snowmobile only is useful a couple days a year.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
You're being a bit flame-batish, but I do have to agree. The "fashion industry" (or rather what a bunch of homosexual men and weird women) promotes a form of female beauty that's largely at odds with the ideal as found throughout most of human history.
A few months ago my wife and I were watching Some Like It Hot, and during the scene where Marilyn Munroe sings, my wife commented that according to modern fashions, she would be considered overweight, if not outright fat. It struck me right there that here is one of the most sensual women of the modern era in one of the sexiest scenes ever to be found in the movies (all praise Billy Wilder with putting up with her to make this film), and a pack of queers and freeky fashionistas have programmed into so many that having some seventeen year old girl with the figure of an eight year old boy is superior to the greatest sex goddess of modern times.
So, from all the guys who secretly fantasize about the golden age of Hollywood sexpots, here's a big "fuck you" to the fashion industry, truly the most perverse and vile aspect of modern media around.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That used to be true. Just look at anyone born before the early 20th century. 100% mortality rate. But with the rise of modern science and the marked decrease in pirates, we've slowly been reducing that rate.
If you look just at the stats for people born since 1980, you'll find a remarkable level of resistance to death, with death rates less than half of those who were born in the 1930's, so it's obvious that there have been significant improvements.
At this rate, not only will those born after 2030 never die, but by 2080, people will be living two, maybe even three lives at once, for eternity!
Last post!
The ignorance of some humor is just shocking!
Of course Canadians have cars and central heating. How else would they get to and stay warm in their yurts? Although the heating is a tricky business for those who live in igloos, but they're just a smaller portion of the population. Only about 35% or so.
And how do you know which is which? The BMI is not meant to be used in the fashion that you're suggesting, percent body fat is. While percent body fat isn't the end all be all, it is a fair measure, and it does a pretty damn fine job of it too.
Unfortunately neither one does a good job of separating visceral fat from subcutaneous fat, and that's more important than being a bit chubby. I do carry a fair bit of fat, but very little of it is visceral, and I'm still within about 5lbs of what's ideal for a person of my build.
The BMI demanded weight of about 170 would definitely be detrimental to my health. BTW, last time I weighed myself I was roughly 189 and 5' 10.5, I don't feel well when I have gotten down under 180.
When your research indicated that overweight people live longer, what it's really telling you is that your definition of "overweight" is broken. And BMI is, indeed, seriously broken, since it does not take in to account age, build, or even sex. BMI says that a man and a woman of the same height should be the same weight. Which is medically dangerous quackery.
The BMI formula was created by a mathematician, not a doctor or someone with medical training. It was pushed as a medical standard by phamracuetical companies that have invested heavily in weight loss drugs. When they found that the 1985 standards for obesity (~27.5) wasn't selling enough weight loss prescriptions, they pushed to lower the threshold to 25 instead.
The reason there are more overweight Americans in the last ten years is that the definition of overweight was changed in 1998. You'll never see a news article that says "Americans used to average ### pounds in weight, and now they average ###+n pounds, or even that the average BMI used to be ## and is now ##+n. All you'll ever see is "there are more overweight americans, with no explanation of how this is determined.
Because, dammit! those pharmaceutical execs have boat payments to make!
what you describe as the ideal curvaceous woman is a man's idea of an attractive woman. a woman's idea of an attractive woman is not the same as a man's idea of an attractive woman. for whatever reason, a lot of women are very self-loathing. and no, its not the usual bogeyman we try to blame for our own behavior, "the media", its some sort of innate psychological thing. a lot of women really think the body of a prepubescent boy is the ideal female appearance for some reason
if you take a woman with a banging bod, subject her to constant attention from all men, she can still go home and look in the mirror and find something to criticize. and she does: she think's she's too fat
the fashion industry has no real power. the fashion industry is given power by the people who buy clothes: women. and there's a lot of self-loathing in the female world. a shame
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Not so fast. As a guy who has married into a Canadian family (hailing from Vancouver, to be specific), I have had quite a re-education as to how bad the Canadian Health Care system is. I, like many other Americans, bought into the idea of how great Canada's Health Care System was, but I have been taught that this is absolutely not the case. I've learned this from many family members and friends. I've read many articles and stories like this one that paint a very different picture than the rosy one I had heard about before.
I would say everyone is 100% likely to die.
Speak for yourself. I plan on living forever.
So far, so good!
Me: 6' 2"
weight: 215
BMI: 28 - overweight
I cycle 10 miles a day to and from work. Hit the gym 3-5 days a week for resistance training. I weight 215 pounds and have a 6-pack.
Oh and i asked my doctor what the lowest possible weight should would recommend for me, if say i wanted to wrestle a low weight class: 190 pounds.
The study proves that the BMI is wrong. An overweight BMI might mean in shape and active.
Big deal. I have 3 cases in the fridge right now.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.