Overweight not as bad as once thought

Apr 20 2005

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.

Last year, scientists inside and outside the agency questioned the figure the CDC issued in a study that attributed 400,000 deaths a year to mostly weight-related causes and said excess weight would soon overtake tobacco as the top U.S. killer. The CDC then admitted making a calculation error and lowered its estimate three months ago to 365,000. The new study attributes 111,909 deaths to obesity, but then subtracts the benefits of being modestly overweight, and arrives at the 25,814 figure.

According to the new estimate, excess weight would drop behind car crashes and guns to seventh place but the CDC is unwilling to make that new ranking official, which underlines the controversy on how the health effects of obesity are calculated.

CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding says they will not use the new figure in their public awareness campaigns because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight.

The study - an analysis of mortality rates and body-mass index, or BMI -is published in the current edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.