When you get older there can be a natural feeling that it’s OK to slip into bad habits. After all you’ve lived a long, healthy life getting plenty of exercise and eating lots of fruit and vegetables. All that being good has earned you some time to let yourself go a little bit and indulge, right? Wrong. A new study has found that elderly people who are obese are at a greater risk of death than their younger counterparts.
This new study has brought up some intriguing results, especially as previous research has indicated that a high Body Mass Index at the age of 65 and older wouldn’t impact someone’s lifespan and that it may actually extend it. These new results seem to follow more with conventional thought as they have revealed that as obese Americans grow older their risk of death increases.
The researchers argue that previous insight into the issue has been unreliable, mainly due to limitations in the methods of surveying those involved. For example, previous studies have neglected to include results for elderly people in nursing homes or in hospital. As such, a large proportion of the obese elderly people were relatively healthy. It’s also known that a huge number of obese people die before they even reach 65 which also skews the result.
Obesity is such a major problem in the lives of so many people; it could really cause huge issues to health and wellness. Becoming obese later in life is worse for you than it is while you are younger – there can be no doubt about that. Make sure you eat healthily and try to do a little exercise every day, even if that just means walking to the shops or doing some gardening.
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