New Study Reveals Shocking Truths about Obesity; Being Overweight and Obese Can Cost Three Years of Your Life
Being obese is not good for one's health and life, a recent research revealed.
A new study on the effects of obesity and being overweight was published in London and revealed that overweight people die a year earlier than people with regular weight, while those who are obese die three years earlier.
Obesity and being overweight are known to lead to serious health conditions such as heart ailments, diabetes, stroke and cancer. According to data gathered by previous studies in Europe and North America, being overweight can shed years off a person's life aside from suffering from various ailments.
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The recent London study is the largest of its kind. Data of around four million non-smoking adults from 32 countries around the world from 1970 to 2015 were studied. The research team compared body mass index (BMI) and the risk of death of the participants.
BMI is the measure of a person's body fat according to his height and weight. In the study, researchers defined a BMI of 18.5 to 25 within the normal range, 25 to 30 as overweight, and 30 to 35 as moderately obese, while a BMI of 40 is for severely obese people. Therefore, a person with a height of 5 feet and 4 inches and a weight of 174 pounds and above is obese.
Men Are More at Risk than Women
Furthermore, the study also found out that men are far more at risk of premature death due to obesity and being overweight than women. One of the authors of the study, Oxford University's Richard Peto said that the risk was around three times more in obese men than in women.
The World Health Organization has already warned about obesity and its effects. According to WHO, in 2014, around 13 percent of the world's population were obese. Aside from smoking, having too much weight is one of the leading causes of premature deaths in Europe and North America.
Peto noted that doing something to lose weight and successfully keeping the weight off could be very difficult. He recommended counselling about weight gain before adults reach middle age to avoid obesity and premature death.
