NEWSFLASH: Being overweight isn't good for you!

In what I'm sure will be a disappointment to those individuals who still persist in denying that there is medical risk associated with obesity a landmark study was published in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

527,265 people were followed for over a decade in determining the risk of weight on life expectancy. The study was controlled for ethnicity, smoking status, education, physical activity and alcohol consumption.

During the 10 years of follow up 42,173 men and 19,144 women died. The death curves were U shaped with dramatic increases in risk as weight climbed.

These data also included 186,000 non-smokers. In that group the risk of death from obesity and overweight was substantially strengthened.

When restricting their observations to those who were free of preexisting diseases again there was a strengthening of the relationship between weight and death.

The bottom line's not really news - being overweight or obese is bad for your health.