Heavier is healthier? Obesity paradox.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Citings - Brief article

"You CAN never be too rich or too thin," declared Wallis Simpson, the woman for whose love Edward viii abdicated the British throne.

Slenderness could help win royal hearts, but it may not extend your life. A literature review published in the January 2 Journal of the American Medical Association looked at nearly 100 studies involving 3 million adults and found that people considered overweight or even mildly obese had lower mortality rates than so-called normal-weight folks.

The researchers, led by Katherine M. Flegal of the National Center for Health Statistics, categorized subjects based on body mass index (BMI), which is your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. The government-recommended range is between 18.5 and 25, "overweight" is 25 to 3% and obese is 30 or more. Someone who is five feet, nine inches tall, for example, is considered overweight at 169 pounds and obese at 203.

It...