Healthy obese people may live as long as thin folks

Rachael Rettner

Not everyone who is obese needs to lose weight — it's possible to carry extra pound and still be healthy, a new study says.and and still be healthy ,Although obesity brings an increased risk of 

many health complications, the new study shows that people who are obese but do not have such complications might live as long as normal weight individuals.

"This illustrates that you can't have one sweeping brush to categorize all obese individuals," said study researcher Jennifer Kuk, an assistant professor at York University in Toronto. People need to look at whether they have additional risk factors indicating poor health to determine whether they shouldlose weight, Kuk said.In fact, the results suggest that " yo-yo dieting," in which individuals lose weight but gain it back later, might be more unhealthful for some obese people than simply maintaining their weight, Kuk said. Participants in the study who lost the most weight over their lifetime, but hadn't necessarily kept the weight off, were more likely to have additional health complications from their obesity than those who lost less weight.

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