Obesity may not be all bad.
That’s the message from the new book, “The Obesity Paradox,” which presents the view that being fat doesn’t necessarily mean unhealthy. In fact, author and cardiologist Carl J. Lavie argues that those who are overweight might actually be in better health and more able to beat diseases than people who are of normal weight.
“Looks can be deceiving,” writes Lavie, who practices at the John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans.
His book adds to the evidence suggesting that while obesity is a serious risk factor to good health, being overweight does not automatically mean being in poor health. As part of his research, Lavie points to his work following patients recovering from heart failure. For every 1 percent increase in body fat among those patients, there was a 13 percent increase in overall survival.
“These findings created an uproar among my colleagues,” Lavie writes. “Unfortunately, the science world wasn’t ready to accept this observation in the early 2000s.”