Obesity shortens life
(Digital News Report) Researchers say that being overweight or obese will shorten your life. Evaluating 57 studies involving some 900,000, Oxford scientists say they have been able to quantify the results in years. They said that BMI is important (see the BMI widget below).
There were approximately 70,000 deaths over the 10 to 15 years the studies spanned. “Obesity causes heart disease and stroke by pushing up blood pressure, mucking up blood cholesterol and triggering diabetes,” said co-author Gary Whitlock, an epidemiologist at Oxford.
The extremely obese subjects saw a 10 year reduction in their lifespan. They were 100 pounds or more overweight. That risk was similar to an entire lifetime of smoking.
Subjects that were about 40 pounds overweight lived about 3 years less than their healthy counterparts.
In the United States one third of Americans are overweight and one there are obese. Overweight individuals will have a BMI between 25 and 30. Obesity is defined as a BMI over 30 (check out our Celebrity BMI calculator below).
BMI is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters. To convert pounds to kg, multiply by .4535. To convert inches to meters multiply by .0254. Or skip that process and use the celebrity BMI calculator. A 200 pound six foot man will have a BMI of 27.12.
By Dan Wilson
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