Skinny people die young. Compared to overweight people, that is. Contradicting what I, and many of you, have come to feel is common sense, this study says that people in the “overweight” category of the BMI scale live longer, healthier lives than their “normal” counterparts with people in the “underweight” and “obese” categories having the worst outcomes. Okay, so ignore the underweight and obese people for a moment; I think we can all figure out why they might have health problems (Kate Moss & Chris Farley walk into a bar…). Um, OVERWEIGHT people have better health outcomes than NORMAL people!!
This is huge. And underreported, according to Gina Kolata, author of Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss – And the Myths and Realities of Dieting. Despite being done over two years ago, this study is finally being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, leading overweight people everywhere to roll their eyes and say “duh” and normal people to choke on their pride and fall off their carefully constructed pedestals.
The Study
Federal researchers at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (star of so many made-for-tv-movies!) studied data from 3 large national surveys, the National Health & Nutrition surveys. They chose a study group supposed to be representative of the national population and then actually weighed and measured them to make sure they were, ahem, accurate in their report of height and weight. Which is definitely a good thing since people are notorious liars on those counts;) The participants were then followed until they died (by Federal Researchers! Ominous!! Conspiracy theories, anyone?) and their deaths were reported from what was written on their death certificate.
The Results
According to Kolata, “Linking, for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease.” The researchers even adjusted for variables such as smoking or existing disease or heart disease from diabetes. Their findings remained the same: people in the overweight group lived the longest.
Caveats
Repeat after me, correlation is not causation. This study cannot definitively say what caused people to die. Also, death certificates often do not show all the causes of a person’s demise. It may say “heart disease” but not that the heart disease was brought on by complications of diabetes. This study also contradicts previous, smaller studies by such luminaries as Harvard. This study should not be used as an excuse to park it on your couch all day and shovel in simple carbs.
What is Normal?
It makes me wonder what “normal” really is. We have long known that the BMI scale sucks. It doesn’t account for muscle mass or cardiovascular health or a great immune system or anything else that would be a measure of good health but we’ve always been told that it is a useful tool for most people. For the average, normal person. But what if normal is larger than what we’ve been taught? What if normal is much, much larger that our societal ideal of beauty?? What then, of all those girls who say they would rather die than be fat? It sounds like they might just get their wish.
My Friend the Triathlete
Anecdotally this makes sense to me. One of my good friends – and best workout buddies until she moved, the traitor- falls into the BMI’s overweight category. (And this is by her own admission, I don’t walk around polling my friends thank you.) She is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with the BMI and the way we think about it. I have watched girlfriend leg press 400 lbs. She can bench press my body weight. She competes in triathlons and not just finishes, but WINS them. Despite me being firmly in the “normal” BMI category, she can out-swim, out-bike & out-lift me any day of the week. My pride does not take that well. Fortunately I can still out-run her. I have to be good at something, darn it!
So who is in better shape? Who should be considered the normal one?
What this all means to me is that our society is long overdue for a serious head examination. Why do insist on perpetuating standards of “health” and “beauty” and are neither healthful nor beautiful?
There might have been something to the female ideal beauty of the old days… you know… PLUMP!
Plump used to be a sign of health and wealth. Though I have always known that obesity is bad AND thinness is BAD, it’s going to be a little bit of a paradigm shift to think that thinness is actually worse… Still, fit is best.
I am about 20 lbs heavier than when my husband and I met. I looked really good then, but I would still be considered overweight according to the “experts”. It’s really about feeling comfortable in your own skin. I will be in about 20 lbs no matter what the “experts” say.
I read that book. It was really interesting. And so different from what I’d always thought. I have no idea who is in better shape, but I know that I agree with you that our society needs to reevaluate some things!
I am a lot heavier than most of my friends who would be of a similar size to me, ie. I have muscle weight. So the weighing scales/BMI charts can be completely misleading, I definitely say it’s time for a new form of measurement.
I don’t know if I could even comment on the Who lives longer Research. From a shallow perspective of what looks better, I think that sometimes we can get too caught up in Skinny vs. Fat when in fact it’s all such a personal thing. I think people look best when they’re in proportion. Some women are curvy and look ridiculous when they lose weight, and others gain weight unevenly – like me – I gain weight on my ass/hips but my upperbody stays leaner! If I gain any more weight I’m going to look like a bowling pin!! :o)
I’m in the conspiracy theory camp!
Great post! Society is messing with your head people! We need change, at least for our children and the generations to come!
amen aboyn3girls.
it’s all about feeling comfy in your skinsuit.
A good friend of mine is a fantastic powerlifter (you see where Im going), strong and BMIobese.
we’re too caught up in the numbers and, IMO, all the wrong ones (ie not blood pressure etc).
Did I give you permission to use my patient for your before and after?
I’m not very enamored with the who lives longer research, there are too many variables. I guess my bottom line is go for quality in life rather than quantity, though I have a feeling if you do, you will get both.
The BMI scale is totally flawed when it comes to people with muscle mass. I’m just about smack in the middle of overweight right now, but I don’t feel it. The last time I can remember being “normal” was when I was in gymnastics, working out 30 hours per week. Considering I will never ever have time to do that again unless I win the lottery – I’ll have to settle for being as fit as possible and thumbing my nose at any silly scales that don’t know ME!
Ooh, I loved Gina Kolata’s book! It’s fantastic. Totally different way of looking at the situation.
I’m thinking that this study doesn’t take into account quality of life, though. Putting aside possibilities that the overweight people were actually healthy and just had more muscles, we’ve got to admit that most North Americans are just plain overweight in an unhealthy way. And I don’t think their quality of life is going to be that great simply because of health issues.
(To play devils advocate here:)).
And I completely agree with aboyn3girls- “its really about feeling comfortable in your own skin”. If you feel good and are living a life of happiness and good quality, then really, weight doesn’t matter at all.
I wonder how long they ‘followed’ the study participants. Because if they started following them when they were 60 until they died, what about their weight/health habits for the first 60 years of life? I would imagine that would play a role in their health as they age… right? I find this research stuff so interesting – I always want to know how they arrive at their conclusions.
I think the most fascinating thing about this study is the way it seems to have been totally ignored by so many “experts”, despite the huge numbers involved.
I know after I read it, I stopped thinking of “overweight” as necessarily being a health risk, until it veers into obesity.
I almost think there’s a weird psychological need people have to feel punitive towards the overweight, even those who are not obese and who actually may live longer.
It’s true; it’s all about taking care of yourself and feeling good.
I personally hope this insane “thinner is better” mentality will go away soon! The havoc we are wreaking on our bodies and psyches is awful. Our kids are getting horrible messages about how they are “supposed” to look. I hope we can switch our focus to health and away from looks, especially the skeletal-chic thing that Hollywood loves so much. And I hope we can stop hating on the fat folks!
My problem with this study is that I have seen some blogs use it to promote the idea that being obese is not unhealthy. Either extreme of the scale (was that a pun?) is not good for you. ‘Overweight’ has too many variables (muscle mass, whether the weight is around the hips or around the waist, yada) to say whether it’s good or bad.
Quote du jour:
“Normality is a condition only arbitrarily definable.” – William Golding
I think that “fit” should be considered best, as I look very thin and I’m focusing more on gaining muscle than anything else.
Also I think that “fit” needs to be defined better: what one area considers fit might not be what another group agrees with.
I honestly think BMI should be disregarded, so this study should be junked too. It’s entirely arbitrary whether a person is overweight and fit or overweight and fat, you can be either.
If you want to know if a person is healthy and will live a long time, look a their lifestyle, check their cholesterol, check their cardiovascular fitness.
Like Merry said, I would worry that if this study HAD been publicised, people would use it as an excuse to put on or maintain weight in the WRONG way, and before you know it nobody is overweight anymore and everybody is obese, and you have a serious health epidemic on your hands.
Unhealthy people die young, that’s the true statement. Whether you’re over or under the “normal” line is beside the point.
TA x
Wow, the comments pretty much cover everything I was going to say.
So:
+1 for BMI being a worthless metric. I vote we replace it with bodyfat percentage. Yes, it’s harder to calculate, but what good is an easy, useless measurement?
It’s time for BMI to be relegated to it’s rightful place in population statistics. It’s vaguely useful for tracking rough proportions of obesity in a completely sedentary population, but applied to individuals, it’s worse than worthless.
At this point I’m not even sure I care about body weight any more. I’d rather be a healthy, lean 200 pounds than a sickly, pudgy 180.
Your friend sounds fit, which does not mean she’s fat! And tell me about the studies of people practicing calorie restriction live longer? I’m sure we can all admit that most of the reason we are fit is for vanity, the desire to conform to the societal whim of what’s beautiful this week. If it’s healthy, that just rationalizes my vanity and gives me a pony to ride, or a pedestal to stand on. When I’m working out sweating hard I never think, “I’m going to live longer and have improved VO2 uptake.” I think, “Check out that cut on my tricep! I LOVE those mirrors!”
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