You've undoubtedly heard the great news splashed on every TV channel, and as fodder for the late night comedians—-being overweight puts you at less risk of death than being normal weight.
Don't grab that Krispy Kreme doughnut or cheeseburger just yet. These findings, from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), directly contradict the CDC's own report last year that obesity was the number two cause of death, and was on target to overtake smoking as number one. A few months ago, the CDC recanted last year's research, and now, this latest research tells us that obesity actually ranks number seven in cause of death, not number two after all.
This also seems to directly contradict another CDC study, which indicated that obesity is shortening our life expectancy, by as much as five years, and that kids will see their life span decrease due to chronic illnesses associated with obesity.
Where did they get those facts? They just don't compute. At the same time that the CDC said that it's healthy to be overweight, other studies were again verifying that being overweight is dangerous to your health.
For example, in a study in Sweden, larger waists predicted greater risk of diabetes and heart disease. And at the same time, Circulation: the Journal of the American Heart Association, was publishing multiple studies that found that you're at a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease if you're overweight. For example, they found that:
Body fat and excess weight were associated with more cardiovascular disease risk in men.
Women with enlarged waists and high triglycerides had almost a five-fold increase in cardiovascular death, largely due to the apple shape being more dangerous than the pear-shape.
Heavy teens who were insulin resistant had 2 or more cardiovascular risk factors, whereas only 8 per cent had risk factors if they were neither heavy nor insulin resistant.
Since cardiovascular diseases are the number one and number three killers, taking nearly half of us, and all the results seems to indicate that being overweight is a significant risk factor for these diseases, the CDC's contention just don't make sense.
The CDC stats are probably related to the long-term nurses study, which found that physical activity was more important in lowering the death rate than was weight. Nurses who were physically active, but slightly overweight, had less risk than nurses with normal weight but who were less active.
However, when grouped by activity level, at every activity level, those who were overweight were more likely to die than the lighter ones. Certainly these findings are a reason for taking action if you're overweight.
So how long will it be before the CDC flip-flops again in light of the nearly overwhelming evidence that being overweight puts us at risk? It probably won't be long.
