Now HERE'S some counterintuitive info from some recent studies:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1230784/
In particular:
A new study based on Statistics Canada population data reaches an exceedingly awkward conclusion: People who are overweight live longer than people who are classified as “normal” weight. Not only that, people who are classified as significantly overweight also live longer.
The study, led by Statistics Canada's Heather Orpana, was devised to estimate the relationship between body mass index and mortality in Canadian adults. The database was nearly 12,000 people. The authors of the Canada-U.S. joint study adjusted for age, gender, smoking, physical activity and alcohol consumption. They found that the link between weight and mortality is relatively weak. The strongest finding was that underweight men are at greater risk than any other group.
But being overweight was associated with a 25-per-cent lower risk of dying. Being obese was associated with a 12-per-cent lower risk of dying. The risk for the most morbidly obese (who account for less than 3 per cent of all Canadians) was statistically the same as the risk for people of “normal” weight. The findings were published online in the research journal Obesity.
In 2005, another researcher, Katherine Flegel, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published another large study with similar findings. Prominent health experts were outraged, calling the research flawed. “There's not a lot of money in trying to debunk obesity, but a huge amount in making sure it stays a big problem,” Patrick Basham, a professor of health-care policy at Johns Hopkins University, told The Associated Press.
Researchers and public-health authorities are heavily invested in obesity. So are major drug companies, which help fund influential bodies such as the International Obesity Task Force. The Canadian Obesity Network, which gets millions in government funding, lists dozens of leading drug companies as its “industry partners.”
I can't access the original study because you have to pay for it!!!!
BUT, further info about this study and lots more can be found here:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/...it-really.html
Thoughts?
Kira