14 DAY TRIAL // The disastrous effects smoking has on the body are well known by now, following extensive research throughout the years. And, while smoking is held as the single most dangerous habit, a new study comes to indicate that being extremely obese or simply overweight can have almost the same health implications, in that the former takes off an average of 10 years of one’s life, as a piece in USA Today informs.
Researchers included more than 900,000 subjects in the latest study, whose lives they monitored for about 10 to 15 years. More than 70,000 deaths were also closely analyzed, wherefrom the conclusion that extreme obesity had the same effects as lifelong smoking stemmed. What is more worrying than the figures themselves, researchers say, is that over 66 percent of US adults are labeled overweight or obese.
Speaking in exact terms, obesity (translated into weighing 40 or more pounds over one’s healthy weight) trims about three years off that person’s life by increasing the chances of heart disease and stroke. Extreme obesity (meaning people who weigh 100 or more pounds over their healthy weight) almost triples that number, taking 10 years off one’s life, which puts it on the same footing as regards health implications of lifelong smoking, lead researcher Richard Peto from the Oxford University in England says for the aforementioned publication.
Michael Thun, emeritus vice president of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society, shares that the study “provides a much clearer picture of the risk associated with various levels of being overweight or obese.” At the same time, he draws attention to the current situation in the US, where more and more adults gain weight beyond any healthy acceptable limits. “What is particularly worrisome in the United States is that more than a third of people now qualify as obese, and a subset of people are becoming progressively more obese. Once you gain weight, it’s hard to lose it and easy to gain more. So the goal to stop your weight gain now.” Thun underlines.
Speaking in direct reference to the dangers of smoking and being obese, Thun adds, “There has been an artificial horse race between obesity and smoking over which is worse. This is fundamentally silly. If you continue to smoke, it takes an average of 10 years off your life. Being very obese has about the same effect.”