What I've been saying for years

Well not years, but for a while. It seems the government was wrong about obesity deaths.

The death toll from obesity is less than a third of the government's previous estimate, researchers are reporting today, contradicting warnings that poor diet and physical inactivity are overtaking smoking as the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States.

A study by respected researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute found that being obese accounted for 112,000 deaths in 2000, far fewer than the estimate of 400,000 deaths in a separate CDC study published last year.

Also, being Kate Moss skinny isn't as healthy as all the pointy heads thought either.

The latest study had another surprising finding: People who are modestly overweight but not obese have a lower risk of death than people of normal weight. Indeed, the fewer deaths from being modestly overweight partially canceled out the deaths from obesity.

The study -- which looked at death rates and body mass index, or BMI, and used newer, more reliable data and a more sophisticated analysis than the earlier research -- was the most comprehensive yet on the impact of obesity. The results are published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am overweight at 230 lbs. But I am 6 foot and with a large frame. According to the government, I could go as low as 140 pounds and be healthy. No way. I'll take my chances eating hard, working hard, and playing a lot in between.

Posted by psugrad98 at April 21, 2005 03:14 PM