New Study Says Being Just A Little Overweight 'Is Harmful, Not Beneficial'

One of the largest studies on the correlation between health and weight finds that you don't have to be obese to raise risk of premature death!

Obesity increases the risk of death from heart disease, stroke and certain cancers, but latest research involving about 1.5 million people concluded that healthy white adults who were overweight were 13 percent more likely to die during the time they were followed in the study.

Amy Berrington of the National Cancer Institute and lead author of the study said:

"Now there's really a very large body of evidence which supports the finding that being overweight is associated with a small increased risk of death."

Using BMI, the research focused on non-smokers who were healthy in the beginning of the study, then checked to see who died during the follow-up periods, which ranged from five to 28 years.

The lowest death rate for healthy women who had never smoked was in the high end of the ideal body mass index range – between 22.5 and 24.9.

Being overweight is considered to begin at a BMI measurement of 25, obese at 30 and morbidly obese at 40

Compared to that group of healthy women, those overweight were 13 percent more likely to die prematurely, while those obese were 44 to 88 percent more likely to die!

Results for men were similar, but the major point for the heavy eaters out there is that the morbidly obese were 2.5 times more likely to die prematurely!

The correlation between being slightly overweight and living less isn't necessarily a shocker, but with all the ways there are to die in this cruel world, we don't think it's saying much either.

We think the important information to take from this is the constant reminder to eat healthy and exercise to keep that percentage of premature death as low as you can!

Tags: disease, exercise, heart disease, obesity, overweight, research