Weight loss is not just about looking good

No doubt, loosing weight does make you look better. However, many people think that this not a good enough reason for putting any effort into weight loss. True or not, there is a much more compelling reason for an overweight person to lose weight, which is to prevent disease and live longer.

It may surprise you but a single most effective way to extend life and preserve health in laboratory mice is to keep them slim. In fact, slim animals live up to twice as long as their overweight counterparts. And they not only live longer but also remain active and healthy long after most of their overweight peers have died.

The effects in humans are less dramatic but the trend is the same. There is a vast amount of research demonstrating that excess weight increases the risk of various diseases including heart disease, stroke, hypertension and diabetes. Furthermore, being overweight increases the risk of dying prematurely. The table below shows the relationship between mortality and weight. You can see that the lowest mortality (as expressed by mortality factor) is associated with having a slightly below average weight.