Being overweight linked to lower risk of mortality
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/02/health/overweight-mortality/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
I thought I had talked about the relationship between being, shall we say, ‘Rubenesque‘, before, but I am not finding such a post. This is not the first time I have found reports where being ‘well padded’ had longer lifetimes, but this one seems to put the clinch on the idea. Note, though, that what is considered ‘overweight’ in the rest of the world is likely considered ‘normal weight’ here in the blubber utopia of the world: the good old USofA. I consider the likely benefit comes into play when you are old(er) and suffer a serious health complication (bad flu, pneumonia, bad fall, etc.) and are unable to eat well (or at all) yet your body has serious requirements for energy for repair. ‘Skinny’ people lack the several pounds of blubber needed to accommodate that energy requirement and as a consequence take longer to heal (or simply die outright) making them more frail and thus more subject to injury/illness in the future. I am entirely unimpressed with the study author’s idea that these ‘full bodied’ people get better health care, I think it is simply due to having more resources on hand (or rather on butt or belly) when knocked up for a week or longer. The average person burns around 2,000 calories a day just staying alive. If you are seriously sick or injured, that calorie requirement might double or more! With 3,500 calories per pound of blubber you can see that going a week without eating can result in some serious slimming. Already slim? Then your hopes of a robust recovery can be equally slim.
All hail blubber butts!
