HHS HealthBeat (July 27, 2009)

Thin, overweight, obese

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A study finds the very thin and the extremely obese were more likely to die before people with normal weight or those who were overweight.

In fact, the data on Canadians indicated the overweight were likely to outlive normal weight people.

But David Feeny of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research says this doesn’t mean overweight is the new healthy. He says maybe overweight people were getting treatment for conditions more common among them, such as diabetes and high blood pressure:

[David Feeny speaks] ``The study does not imply that if you are in the normal weight range, you should attempt to gain weight. And the study does not imply that if you are in the overweight range, you need not be concerned.’’

The report in the journal Obesity was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: July, 28 2009