Being underweight is more dangerous than being overweight

We are rightly worried about obesity, but a new study has found that being underweight is even more dangerous.

From  Underweight or overweight: Study looks at which is deadlier – CBS News.

It’s said you can never be too rich or too thin, but new research suggests otherwise. People who are clinically underweight face an even higher risk for dying than obese individuals, the study shows.

Compared to normal-weight folks, the excessively thin have nearly twice the risk of death, researchers concluded after reviewing more than 50 prior studies.

Obesity has occupied center stage under the public health spotlight, but “we have [an] obligation to ensure that we avoid creating an epidemic of underweight adults and fetuses who are otherwise at the correct weight,” said study leader Dr. Joel Ray, a physician-researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

The findings appear in the March 28 issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health. . . .

Underweight patients of all ages (those with a BMI of 18.5 or under) were found to face a 1.8 times greater risk for dying than patients with a normal BMI (between 18.5 and 25.9), the study found.

By contrast, obese patients (those with a BMI between 30 and 34.9) face a 1.2 greater risk for dying than normal-size patients. Severely obese patients — those with a BMI of 35 or more — faced a 1.3 times greater risk.