I'm thinking of moving to Canada, and it has nothing to do with avoiding the draft, nor with frustrations over our current political direction, nor because of the recent heat wave in which our near-100-degree daytime temperatures "cooled down" all the way to 85 in the middle of the night—and not even because Canada ranks close to Switzerland and New Zealand at the top of my list of the world's most beautiful places. No, what makes being Canadian particularly attractive at the moment is this study of the relationship between body mass index and death of more than 10,000 Canadian adults.
Researchers found that while underweight and extremely obese people die earlier than people of a normal weight, people who are slightly overweight actually live longer than those of a normal weight.
[U]nderweight people were 70 percent more likely than people of normal weight to die, and extremely obese people were 36 percent more likely to die. But overweight individuals were 17 percent less likely to die. The relative risk for obese people was nearly the same as for people of normal weight.
[T]his was the first large Canadian study to show that people who are overweight may actually live longer than those of normal weight.
But wait...there's good news...I may not have to move after all:
Gotta love medical studies. You can find one that proves whatever you want. Now to get my hands on a copy of Chocolate Unwrapped: The Surprising Heath Benefits of America's Favorite Passion.An earlier study, conducted in the United States and published in 2005 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed similar results.
