Being overweight 'costs you 10 years'

PEOPLE who are overweight or obese are lopping up to a decade off their lives, a major

international study shows.

British researchers have pulled together studies encompassing almost a million people,

including Australians, to look at how a person's Body Mass Index (BMI) can be a predictor of

early death.

Almost 70,000 of the test subjects died during the study, and the fewest of these came from the

group with a healthy body shape (BMI of 22.5 to 25).

At the other end of the scale, people with a BMI indicating they were overweight (30 - 35 BMI)

were shown to have died up to four years earlier than expected.

Those in the obese category (40 - 45 BMI) reduced their survival by eight to ten years, the same

as life-long smokers.

"It's a pretty striking paper in terms of how important weight is," CSIRO leader in human nutrition

Dr Peter Clifton said in response to the research.

"And as people are getting fatter even earlier, then this is only going to increase ... this (study) is

probably under-representing what is really happening."

A person's BMI rating is a calculation which takes in their weight and height. For example, a

person who is 170cm tall and who weighs 70kg has a BMI of 24.2 - within the healthy range.

If the same person weighed 100kg then their BMI would be 34.6 - in the range considered

overweight. Add a few more kilograms to 120kg (BMI of 41.5) and they're obese.

The study also found that with every five point increase in BMI, the person increased their

chance of dying during the study by 30 per cent.

The major causes of death were vascular and kidney problems such as heart attack or diabetes.

Dr Clifton said the findings showed the importance of maintaining a healthy weight throughout

life, but particularly the danger posed by gaining weight early in life.

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"The risk (of premature death) is even stronger because you're exposed to being fat even

longer," he said.

"When you get to age 25, when you start to gain weight, you need to really work hard to stop

gaining that weight."

The research is published in the journal Lancet.