Being overweight has many cons, but does it have any pros? Apparently it does according to this article. There has always been questions about the link between being overweight and how long someone will live. In this article there are two opposing standpoints. One being that being overweight actually affects your lifespan positively or on the other hand, negatively. According to Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, being overweight actually helps you lifespan. With the research she established, she came to the conclusion that being overweight helps decrease the risk of death. She claims that one-third of all Americans fall under this category of overweight and will happen to live longer than people who are below that weight. Then on the other hand, Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, claims that Flegal has overlooked this association of body mass and lifespan. He says that her analysis doesn't address the bigger, more important issues of quality of life. If an overweight person does live longer, is he or she living with chronic diseases? He claims that it's more than just looking at your BMI (Body Mass Index) to come to a conclusion, but being overweight does have it's benefits. According to Dr. Steven Hymsfield, of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La, "If you fall and you fall on vulnerable bone, like the hip, having a little extra fat there might protect you from hip fracture,"
You can read the full article here and decide for yourself whether you think your lifespan will get longer as you get bigger:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/01/02/168437030/research-a-little-extra-fat-may-help-you-live-longer
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