Quote:
Originally Posted by Barefoot
I found it very interesting that a study based on over 2 million people showed that being overweight (not obese) could be healthy as long as you exercise. The study showed that exercise is more important than being thin in terms of longevity. That's what I took away from the article.
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The problem I have noticed is that many people start their retirement years with the best of intentions. In my first Villages neighborhood, I made friends with a large group of people. Most of them started out doing a lot of walking, golfing etc.. Then one-by-one they they did less and less until they stopped exercising. So I believe counting on exercising alone to pull oneself through is shortsighted. Most of them were overweight and when they stopped exercising they didn't last long. They are all deceased. As he said in the article: Being overweight and sedentary is a prescription for disaster.
It's not that they didn't live long, it's that their last decade or so was miserable and they didn't fulfill their potential. They were all taking multiple drugs and having side effects, not to mention having to endure all kinds of medical proceedures. But many overweight people reading this column will only come away with one idea, that it's okay to be overweight.
Being thin is no guarantee of anything either. People can be thin by skipping breakfast or just having a cup of coffee and a slice of toast. And then they might have a ham sandwich for lunch etc.. On top of that, they may be sedentary.
He did get some things right but here's what I think he should have said but didn't: "Being overweight is generally bad for your health in the long run, but you can make the best of a bad situation by being fit." And, "just the fact of being thin is no guarantee of health and longevity, unless you also live a healthy lifestyle." (If the study is correct, there must be a lot of thin people who live very unhealthy lifestyles.)
Note: How much longer did overweight people live on average (being kept alive miserably by technology)? Perhaps he didn't think it was important enough to quantify.