By MELINDA BECK In a finding that could undermine many New
Year's resolutions, a new government study shows that people who
are overweight are less likely to die in any given period than
people of normal weight. Even those who are moderately obese
don't have a higher-than-normal risk of dying. Being
substantially obese, based on measure called body mass index, or
BMI, of 35 and higher, does raise the risk of death by 29%,
researchers found. But people with a BMI of 25 to 30—who are
considered overweight and make up more than 30% of the U.S.
population—have a 6% lower risk of death than people whose BMI
is in the normal range of 18.5 to 25, according to the study,
being published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical
Association. People who had a BMI of 30 to 35—considered the
first stage of obesity—had a 5% lower risk of dying, but those
figures weren't considered statistically significant. Still,
health experts said that Americans shouldn't treat the new study
as a license to eat more. "That would