Monday, 22 June 2009
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Chubby People Live Longer?
Wow, that is great news being quite the “chubster” myself, I found this story interesting.
Health experts have long warned of the risk of obesity, but a new Japanese study warns that being very skinny is even more dangerous, and that slightly chubby people live longer.People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people, the study found."We found skinny people run the highest risk," said Shinichi Kuriyama, an associate professor at Tohoku University's Graduate School of Medicine who worked on the long-term study of middle-aged and elderly people."We had expected thin people would show the shortest life expectancy but didn't expect the difference to be this large," he told AFP by telephone.
The study was conducted by a health ministry team led by Tohoku University professor Ichiro Tsuji and covered 50,000 people between the ages of 40 and 79 over 12 years in the northern Japanese prefecture of Miyagi."There had been an argument that thin people's lives are short because many of them are sick or smoke. But the difference was almost unchanged even when we eliminated these factors," Kuriyama said.Main reasons for the shorter lifespans of skinny people were believed to include their heightened vulnerability to diseases such as pneumonia and the fragility of their blood vessels, he said.My grandmother always believed this to be true especial with babies…in fact my Sicilian grandmother used to give us butter to fatten us up when we were babies.But Kuriyama warned he was not recommending people eat as much as they want."It's better that thin people try to gain normal weight, but we doubt it's good for people of normal physique to put on more fat," he said.I won’t take this as a license to eat mass quantities but I won’t be fasting today either.
Are you surprised to hear these results? Would you consider yourself thin or slightly chubby?
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- From: Gentemann@xanga
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Comments (208)
i'm chubby; average going to be overweight soon, unfortunately haha.
You got some weight, you should live longer than underweight people fer sure.
Yeh.. surprised rofl.
I'm not THIN, I'm perfect for my height and age.
I'm curious as to what they mean by "thin." Is there something measurable, like BMI? I am thin, but I don't think I'm skinny. Last time I got tested, my BMI and body fat were at the low end of the healthy range. So basically, I shouldn't lose any weight, but I'm not too skinny either. When I was growing up, I was really skinny and people thought I was anorexic. I was actually healthy then. I had no medical issues. Now I'm a normal weight and I do have medical issues. So I guess there are always exceptions...
i'm chubby. :D
i think it's pretty interesting.
"Chubby people live longer"
Not if I kill them.
I'm wondering about the weight that they put all the people in. Like what they consider skinny, chubby, and obese. This is pretty interesting. I hadn't really considered being skinny (unless unhealthily so) a way to shorten ones life.
@xueyo@xanga - yeah me too :/
This is bullshit......
yeah I wonder what they mean by thin??
do they mean a BMI less than 18 ? because then I'd believe it -- being underweight is just as dangerous as being obese
this is unrelated, but a girl I know was critically injured a few years ago in a car accident
they said that if she hadn't been fat, she would have died from the impact
fat saves lives! lol
@misstephy@xanga - @pillowpixies@xanga - @EccentricSiren@xanga - The study divided people into categories by BMI --the "thin" group were people with BMI < 18.5 (below normal range). The results showed higher mortality rates in the obese and the underweight, with no apparent correlation between BMI and mortality for those with BMIs between 18.5-29.9 (the normal to overweight category).
So basically, all the study is really saying is that it's better to be somewhat overweight than underweight. It does NOT say that it's better to be overweight than normal weight (mortality was about the same).
@just_the_average_jane@xanga - thanks for clarifying that =) I definitely agree that being below 18.5 BMI is dangerous!
i think they mean anorexic people vs. slightly chubby people
b/c if anyone tries to tell me i'll die sooner than the chubby people i'll laugh my butt off - im not super skinny but rather skinny-average (in order to be at average i would have to stop running and im not willing to do that)
Im a chubster... Even in my High school days.. sure I was 150lbs and 16... and 5'7... But I was still a size 9 in pants... and medium.large shirts... But I counted my self looki healthy then... I could Eat a big mac and not go.. OMG im gonna look so fat tomorrow.. cause i knew i'd look the same..
I am the perfect weight for my height :)
yes they also considered BMI...I have that data and will pass it on..jer@EccentricSiren@xanga -
yea...
In Japan chubby people eat fish.In the U.S. chubby people eat big macs.probably not the same.I'd rather be pretty and live five years less then suffer to the end of my life being ugly to the majority of the population.
please have them operational define what "thin" and "chubby" means. also, what was the diversity of the nationality of the people they were looking at? is this polulation majority japanese? in that case, can this really be generalized onto those that aren't japanese?
i am very surprised, and frankly feel like this is false. i watched a show that said that people who eat less that 2,000 calories a day, effectively starving themselves slightly, live at least 10 years longer. because they are forcing their bodies to work harder and use those calories. it makes the heart become significantly healthier and longer-lasting.
so i never want to be even chubby, thank you very much.
I am thin but I am not a bag of bones. I have muscle. Does that count? I don't think it's too healthy to be having huge love handles and a beer gut....
just sayin.
The body's optimal weight is usually slightly overweight from what I've heard, but I'm not surprised. however, I'd expect that this also goes for someone who's slightly pudgy but also physically active and otherwise healthy, maybe just eats too much fo the "good" stuff. Not many of those types exist. I'd rather look good and live 5 years shorter, though, to be honest with ya.
@shes_lump@xanga - I think by thin it means underweight, medically.
Interesting.
@PenaltyLife@xanga - Why
so condescending? Couldn't someone say the same thing about how if you
weigh more your heart has to work harder and therefore it gets
stronger? - - Chill out...
Anyway I'm not really surprised at
this considering a lot of time the BMI tells you a weight a few pounds
lower than what is actually normal for your body. I'm thin but I don't
see anything wrong with being chubby as long as you're not so
overweight that its becoming a serious health risk.
Something tells me I'm the only thin person here who isn't gonna be a complete bitch about this LOL.