Being too heavy may cost you your life — literally. Scientists say
overweight people die one year earlier than expected and that moderately obese
people die up to three years prematurely. Doctors have long warned that being
overweight can lead to health complications including heart disease, stroke and
cancer, and previous studies have already found that extra pounds can take
years off your life, based mostly on data from Europe and North America. In the
new study, which the authors say is the largest-ever such analysis, researchers
sifted through data for nearly 4 million non-smoking adults in 32 countries
published from 1970 to last year. They compared the risk of death to people's
body mass index, or BMI, a measure of body fat that is calculated using height
and weight. Related: America's Obesity Epidemic Hits New High They defined a
BMI from 18.5 to 25 as normal, 25-30 as overweight, 30-35 as moderately obese and
over 40 as severely obese. A person who is 5 foot 4 is considered obese at a
weight of 174 pounds or more.Overweight people lose a year of life on average and
moderately overweight people lose three years, said Richard Peto of Oxford
University, one of the study authors. A previous study found that being
severely obese could cost as much as eight years of life. The study also found
that being obese is far more dangerous for men than for women.
Related: Fat More Important Than Weight Alone for Health "The excess
risk of premature death is about three times as big for a man who gets fat as
for a woman who gets fat," Peto said. Men tend to be higher risk for earlier
death in general, and the risk worsens when obesity is added to the equation,
he said. According to the World Health Organization, 15 percent of women worldwide
and 11 percent of men are obese. Overall, the WHO estimates that more than 1 billion
adults are overweight and another 600 million people are obese.
Related: The Whole World is Getting Fatter Carrying too much weight is now
second to smoking as a cause of premature death in North America and Europe;
smoking causes about a quarter of all premature deaths there while being too heavy
now causes about 14 to 20 percent of such deaths. Peto acknowledged that more
is needed than to simply advise people to lose weight, because dropping even a
few pounds and keeping them off is notoriously difficult. "It might be
easier to recommend that people try very hard not to put on weight in the first
place, particularly before they hit middle age," he said.
Source.nbcnews
