from Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health
Is it better to be overweight or underweight. Turns out each contributes to risk of dying more than being of normal weight. Research led by Dr. Joel Ray at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto found adults with a body-mass index under eighteen point five had nearly twice the risk of dying than those of normal weight. That’s a slightly greater risk than for people who are obese. They identified the common causes for being underweight were malnourishment, heavy alcohol use, smoking or general poor self-care. Researchers accepted only studies that followed people for five years or longer to consider patients who were underweight because of cancer or chronic disease. Dr. Ray wrote in the Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health that even as we try to curb the epidemic of obesity, we need to avoid creating an epidemic of underweight adults.