On Sat, 27 Mar 2004, "Proctologically Violated" wrote:

Not according to Blair, Forrester, and likely others.

Nothing wrong w/ being "fat", if it is possible to ever DEFINE
"fat". Problem numero uno.
The issue is lifestyle.
Now, you can argue that there are correlations, even cause,
between lifestyle and weight, but in the cases where there is not (where
someone is just genetically heavier than their counterpart), such findings
likely do not hold water. And this is a very common occurrence.
Blair found that fat AND fit was actually "healthier" than thin
and fit, although fat and UNfit was worse than thin and unfit.

Did Blair follow over 5,300 people with an average age of around 45 years
for a period ranging from 22 to 26 years? That is what the quoted study
did. That's a significant amount of people over a very significant about
of time. The starting mean age is of particular significance since one
would expect a fair number of deaths over that period of time.