TWISTS AND TURNS
A spot of good news for the U.S., with one of the highest obesity rates in the world. This in via Yahoo! News:
"A new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people — about half — have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity.
The first national estimate of its kind bolsters the argument that you can be hefty but still healthy, or at least healthier than has been believed.
The results also show that stereotypes about body size can be misleading, and that even "less voluptuous" people can have risk factors commonly associated with obesity, said study author MaryFran Sowers, a University of Michigan obesity researcher."
How can this be possible, you ask?
"In the study, about 51 percent of overweight adults, or roughly 36 million people nationwide, had mostly normal levels of blood pressure, cholesterol, blood fats called triglycerides and blood sugar.Almost one-third of obese adults, or nearly 20 million people, also were in this healthy range, meaning that none or only one of those measures was abnormal."
The whole story is worth reading, as it provides a lot more nuance from the study, since it doesn't mean that those on the obese side can relax their weight-loss efforts. But it does shed more knowledge on the subject than we had before.
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