Study: Being a Little Fat May Help You Live Longer

A giant new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a surprising fact: being a little overweight may actually extend a person's life span. In fact, the people who live the longest, more often than not, aren't of "normal weight" according to the CDC researchers.

The study looked at over a hundred research papers related to mortality risk and body weight (measured as body mass index/BMI) in nearly 3 million participants all over the world. They found strong evidence showing that people who are overweight -- but not obese -- tend to live longer than people of clinically normal body weight.

Still, the new study confirmed one important thing: obese people -- and especially the extremely obese -- live much shorter lives on average.

According to CDC senior research scientist Katherine Flegal:

"We published an article in 2005 that showed, among other things, that overweight was associated with lower mortality — and we got an awful lot of negative feedback from that... I think there’s a lot of under reporting of this finding... and so people are sort of repeatedly surprised by it."

We say: What the so-called experts really need to be looking at is the whole BMI measurement and just how accurate it is (spoiler: it's not very accurate at all). Many bodybuilders and heavily-muscled athletes with single-digit body fat levels are considered "obese" under the BMI guidelines.

Learn some mo': Being Overweight Is Linked to Lower Risk of Mortality