Aug 23 2006
Slightly Overweight is Bad Too
We are getting fat. So fat that the word obese has crept into daily life. Fast food and slow movements have created a society that pushes the limits; the limits of the scales.
Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones, the ones who are only just slightly overweight. Up until now, you’ve considered yourself to be in need of a little work, but nothing serious. Well, I’m sorry to say, the researchers are after you now too:
The 10-year study of more than 500,000 U.S. adults found those who were just slightly overweight in their 50s were 20 percent to 40 percent more likely to die in the next decade.
Another study involving more than 1 million Korean adults, also being published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, produced similar results.
No! Now it’s not good enough just to be slightly heavy, you actually have to be “normal” weight. What’s next? Are they going to expect us to workout too?
There are some who claim these studies are over-blown and part of the growing “obesity hysteria“:
“I think they are just adding to the obesity hysteria,” said Glenn A. Gaesser of the University of Virginia. “They are presenting the data in a way that paints overweight and obesity in the worst possible light. It’s not as bad as they make it seem.”
The number of Americans who are overweight has been increasing steadily in the United States. About two-thirds of Americans are now overweight, including about a third who are obese.
It seems that there is just no way around it; staying in shape means you live longer. Unless you are run-over by a car jogging or get skin cancer from being outside too much, or contact West Nile Virus from a mosquito, or camp-up and drown in a pool, or ride your bike off a cliff, or over-exert yourself and have a heart-attack, or go to a club and die from second-hand smoke, or …
Why is it the news is never good?
Other voices:
- The Rest of the Day, With a Bulging Tummy
- Dreams Hurt More When They’re Crushed By Fat People
- from the pages of “duh!” magazine…
- That’s gone and ruined it
- Piling the Bad News Atop the Evidence Atop the Excess Fat
