Over 120 media releases for published 'Healthy Obesity' article
7 January 2015
Joshua Bell, a PhD student in the Whitehall II Group, recently published an article on 'The Natural Course of Healthy Obesity Over 20 Years' (J Am Coll Cardiol. 2015 Jan 65;(1):101-102).
The study has been extensively covered in over 120 media releases around the world.
Key finding
We know from previous studies that healthy obese adults have a disease risk which is lower than for unhealthy obese adults, but still substantially greater than for healthy normal-weight adults. Our study gets at the root of the 'healthy obesity' idea by looking at whether healthy obesity itself is stable over time. Using repeat clinical measures, we found that healthy obese adults tend to become unhealthy obese in the long-term, with about half making this transition over 20 years in our study. Healthy obese adults were also far more likely to become unhealthy obese than healthy or unhealthy non-obese adults, indicating that healthy obesity is a high risk state with serious implications for disease risk.
Links to a selection of media releases
- There's no such thing as "healthy obesity": Study reveals most fat people have worse health as the years go by than their thinner counterparts Daily Mail (5 January 2015)
- 'Healthy obesity' does not last, says study Yahoo News UK (5 January 2015)
- Study debunks the notion of "healthy obesity", CBS News (5 January 2015)
- Healthy obesity: not a fantasy (but rare and elusive), Los Angeles Times (5 January 2015)
- 'Fat But Fit' Theory Mainly Flops in Long Term Study, NBC News (5 January 2015)
- Healthy obesity 'misleading concept', Boots Med MD (6 January 2015)
- Bad news for obese people in good health: it won't last, The Times (6 January 2015)
- Many 'Healthy Obese' Don't Stay Healthy, New York Times (7 January 2015)