Being overweight may not be very good for you but it now seems it is nowhere near as big a killer as the US government once thought.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , in surprising new figures, say that being overweight accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States, which ranks seventh rather than second among the nation's leading preventable causes of death.
Earlier this year, in January, the CDC had estimated the figure to be 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths.
Last year, a CDC study listed the leading causes of preventable death in order, as tobacco; poor diet and inactivity, leading to excess weight; alcohol; germs; toxins and pollutants; car crashes; guns; risky sexual behavior; and illicit drugs.
The new analysis confirms that obesity, being extremely overweight, is indisputably lethal, but found, as did several recent smaller studies, that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight.
Mary Grace Kovar, a consultant for the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center in Washington, says that ''normal'' is possibly set too low for today's population as many who might be classified as overweight are eating better, exercising more and managing their blood pressure better than they used to.