Study confirms thinner is better for womenSeptember 14, 1995
Web posted at: 6:30 p.m. EDT
From Correspondent Eugenia Halsey
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- There's more reason than ever for women to keep extra pounds off, thanks to a study that gives scientific support for staying lean. The report found that women who weigh the least generally live the longest. (133K .aiff sound or 133K .wav sound)
Previous studies had suggested that being too thin might
increase the risk of dying early. But when Dr. JoAnn Manson
of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and her colleagues
at Harvard excluded women who smoked, they found just the
opposite: that being even mildly overweight increased the
risk of premature sickness and death.
For example, their results showed that for a woman of average
height, 5 feet 5 inches, a healthy person weighing less than
120 pounds had the lowest risk of dying early, while one
weighing 150 to 160 pounds had a 30 percent increased risk.
And the risk was still greater, up 60 percent, for those
weighing 161 to 175 pounds. Even putting on just 20 pounds
in adulthood boosted a woman's chances of getting sick.
"Particularly if they gained more than 40 pounds, they had seven times the risk of dying from coronary heart disease and about a 50 percent higher risk of dying from cancer," Manson said.
Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said the study,
reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, should serve
as "a major wake-up call" for Americans. And the government
is considering revising its height and weight charts to
endorse lower weights.
Current guidelines say women who are 5-foot-5 should weigh
between 126 and 161 pounds, depending on body type.
Some nutrition experts are worried that the study, which looked at death rates among more than 1,000 women, will send the wrong message. "(Women) may interpret this as saying, 'Oh, my goodness, I must be 15 percent below the average American woman's weight in order to attain quality of life and longevity.' And in a way, they may look at this as condemning them," said Dr. Pamela Peeke, an obesity expert.
One of her patients, Jennifer Cohen, agrees. "I probably
will never get to my average weight for my average height,"
she said. Cohen has lost 50 pounds, however, through diet
and exercise. And Peeke said that even losses of as little
as 10 pounds can improve a patient's health.
Meanwhile, another study in the New England Journal provides more evidence that yo-yo dieting, condemned in previous studies, may not be harmful after all. Researchers looked at death rates among Japanese-American men and found that weight fluctuations in those who were healthy did not increase their risk of dying from heart disease or other causes.
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