Being fat is as bad as smoking

BBC Repots "Being overweight or seriously underweight as a teenager curbs life expectancy as much as smoking 10 cigarettes a day, a study suggests."

"Swedish researchers followed 46,000 men from the age of 18 for 38 years. Being obese or smoking more than 10 a day doubled the premature death risk, the British Medical Journal reported.

Being overweight, seriously underweight or smoking 10 or less raised it by 30% - and interestingly the fat non-smoker ran the same risk as the fat smoker.

Those who were underweight - with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 18.5 - had no increased risk of dying early, regardless of whether they smoked or not.

But the team from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found that those who were seriously underweight - with a BMI of 17 or less - ran the same risk as those who were overweight.

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