Overweight people live longest, but not necessarily best Being
moderately overweight is associated with the longest life
expectancy. For most of the 20th century, actuaries had shown
that life expectancy followed a bell-shaped curve. People who
were at their ideal weight or thin or those who were obese had a
shorter life expectancy than those who were overweight. In other
words, actuaries said if you had a body mass index (BMI) between
24 and 30, you lived the longest. A few years ago, this concept
was debunked when a series of research articles in prestigious
journals showed that even a few extra pounds shortened life
expectancy. Now comes a new article in the Journal of the
American Medical Association that analyzed the results of 97
studies involving 2.88 million people in whom weight was
correlated with life expectancy. In this report, individuals who
were overweight having a BMI between 24 and 30 were 6 percent
less likely to die from all causes than those who were at their
ideal weight and 16 percent le