Study states death risk lower for overweight people than fit people

[Barmacral]

I couldn't really put all the info in the title, but I'm skeptical of this study, particularly with its focus on BMI. I also haven't done research beyond the article linked.

 

Thoughts?

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013/01/02/death-risk-drop-overweight.html

[Waldo]

For many types of illnesses it helps to be a bit overweight.

 

Going to chemotherapy with 10% BF is not really an ideal situation.

 

This isn't to say you should be mobidly obese, but if your health goes south, its good to have enough fat stores to weather a severe appetite disruption for a while without having to worry about anorexia type starvation getting you.

 

You win some you lose some.  If heart disease and type 2 diabetes run in the family, probably best to stay leaner.  If cancer runs in the family, a little extra midsection could be helpful.  I've know people on both sides of the coin.

[Affekonig]

In an aggregation of 97 different studies, who can say what was controlled for uniformly, what wasn't, and how?  Certainly not from just reading a one page news story.

 

Issues off the top of the head:

1) How much less likely are heavy smokers to be overweight?

2) To what extent do people with sedentary office jobs overall have much better access to health care and particularly preventive care.

3) *WHEN* were these people weighed?  How many of the 270,000 people who died in the study data were recorded with a weight measured after a terminal disease had stripped away body mass?  Of course it looks like lighter people are dying if some of those 97 input studies used weight at time of death.

[CalvinHobbes]

3) *WHEN* were these people weighed?  How many of the 270,000 people who died in the study data were recorded with a weight measured after a terminal disease had stripped away body mass?  Of course it looks like lighter people are dying if some of those 97 input studies used weight at time of death.

Good point. *Many* times people who developed heart disease from obesity end up losing a lot of weight before dying.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I think part of the issue is "Overweight" was probably defined by BMI, and I am not the BMI's biggest fan. What BMI defines as overweight I might define as healthy.

[This is Seth]

I'm obese by BMI standards...  

[msuroo]

BMI (rightfully) has a lot of critics, but this is one case where it's use doesn't bother me.  Remember, the whole purpose of BMI in the first place was to roughly approximate body fat in large cross sections of population, at which it does a fairly reasonable job.  As an individual metric, it's worthless, but in big enough studies, it's close enough.  You would never be able to gather enough relevant data for a study like this if the only subjects you considered had relatively recent bod pods or dexa scans - not enough people do it.

 

As to the findings themselves - I'd have to read the study (as opposed to an article about a study, which always tend to be sensationalized), but it does make intuitive sense to me.  Being obese is bad, obviously, and the findings seem to suggest as much.  But I can totally see a little extra body fat being helpful in a severe illness situation.

[Grizzy]

I'm obese by BMI standards...  

Me too, although maybe I actually am supposed to be. That pesky 180 pound mark...

[Timmy M]

I'm obese by BMI standards...  

 

 

Me too, although maybe I actually am supposed to be. That pesky 180 pound mark...

 

 

lol slightly jealous, i'm 23.8 on bmi sooooo nearly overweight, that's gonna need a facebook status and woot room when i get there (only about 3kg to go!)