Obesity cuts as much as eight years off your life
Many of the negative effects of obesity are already well known, but a new study suggests that complications from the condition can cut as many as eight years off a person’s life.
To calculate how being overweight affects life expectancy, researchers at the University of Montreal ran a computer model on the known risks associated with obesity, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. They found that men between 20 and 39 who were obese tended to live 8.4 fewer years than men of normal weight men of the same age. The difference in life expectancy for women was 6.1 years. The researchers also estimated that the obese men in the group lived in poor health for 18.8 years while obese women lived in poor health for an average of roughly 19 years.
The study, published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, determined that obese men and women who became obese in their 40s and 50s had three to five fewer years of life than people of normal weight.
The researchers said that many people continue to remain "ignorant" of the long-term consequences of obesity.