USA Today reports, “Weighing too much may take as much as a decade off your life, according a new analysis of studies that involved 900,000 people.” What are the details? And, what can you do to protect your family and your children?
More Information:
For the study, researchers “examined the findings of 57 studies involving about 900,000 adults who were followed for 10 to 15 years. Most of the people lived in the USA or Western Europe. The scientists analyzed 70,000 deaths.”
“The studies used Body Mass Index (BMI), a measurement that divides a person’s weight in kilograms by their height squared in meters to determine obesity,” the AP adds. 
The “researchers found that death rates were lowest in people who had a BMI of 23 to 24, on the high side of the normal range.” 
In the study, which appears in the journal Lancet, researchers from the University of Oxford wrote that they found “that people who were moderately fat, with a BMI from 30 to 35, lost about three years of life.”
However, “people who were morbidly fat — those with a BMI above 40 — lost about 10 years off their expected lifespan, similar to the effect of lifelong smoking.”
In other words, MORBID OBESITY is AS FATAL as LIFELONG SMOKING. Incredible.
BBC News notes that “much of the obesity-related risk is down to heart disease and stroke, and to a lesser extent cancer.” The researchers estimated that, “amongst middle-aged people in the UK, as many as one in four deaths from heart attack or stroke and one in 16 cancer deaths are due to being overweight or obese.”
According to Bloomberg News, “Obesity rates doubled among adults in the US between 1980 and 2000, according to the US Centers for Disease Control, which estimates 30 percent of the population is now obese.” 
Researchers noted that “participants with a BMI below 22.5 were more likely to die of smoking-related disease such as lung cancer, the study found. 
Continuing to smoke is as dangerous as doubling one’s body weight, and three times as dangerous as moderate obesity,” they said. 
You can read my blog about another danger or obesity, namely how “childhood obesity may lead to ‘explosion’ of adult cancer” here. 
But, even more importantly: what can you do to protect your children from the threat of obesity? I have a number of resources that will help you and your family.
A great option is to order and read my book, SuperSized Kids: How to protect your child from the obesity threat. You can order it here. You can also order an autographed and personalized copy here. 
You can find a free Family Assessment Tool here  that will help you assess your family’s diet, activity and rest habits (it’s called The SuperSized Kids Quiz). Download and take the assessment to see how you and your family are doing.  
In addition, I’ve designed an complimentary 8-Week Family Fitness Plan (SuperSized Kids 8-Week Plan) that you can find here.