MrVee
New member
An interesting article today released by the JAMA which is a meta-analysis of mortality rates by Body Mass Index. Once again the somewhat counter-intuitive data suggests that the BMI range of "overweight," which is 25 to below 30, had the lowest mortality rates. And "normal" BMI, which is 18.5 to below 25, had higher rates than "overweight" and rates not statistically different than the first class of obesity, which is 30 to below 35.
Single studies are notoriously unreliable, and even meta-studies like this one come with inherent difficulties (sometimes it's like mixing apples and oranges). But in any event, there doesn't appear to be a lot of evidence that if you're sitting at at a 27 BMI, that you're facing significant health risks because of it. You may still want to lose weight to look and feel better, but it's not at all clear that it's "unhealthy" to be that weight without bringing in a whole bunch of other facts.
The clearest data seems to be that BMI's over 35 do lead to significant increases in mortality rates, but again these studies are never the last word on anything.
Single studies are notoriously unreliable, and even meta-studies like this one come with inherent difficulties (sometimes it's like mixing apples and oranges). But in any event, there doesn't appear to be a lot of evidence that if you're sitting at at a 27 BMI, that you're facing significant health risks because of it. You may still want to lose weight to look and feel better, but it's not at all clear that it's "unhealthy" to be that weight without bringing in a whole bunch of other facts.
The clearest data seems to be that BMI's over 35 do lead to significant increases in mortality rates, but again these studies are never the last word on anything.