It turns out that the Duchess of Windsor was, at best, only half right when she said a woman couldn't be too rich or too thin. In fact, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, in a paper about body weight and health risks published last week, concluded that the very thin run about the same risk of early death as the very fat. Their study showed that 33,000 deaths a year could be avoided if the thinnest 2 percent of Americans were of normal weight.
That result was a shock; scientists thought they had proved that thin was best, at least for healthy animals. And it was widely held that eating one-third less than the recommended amount for any individual could extend life.
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Dr. Flegal admits she is baffled. "We just don't know the whole story," she said. But she speculates that very thin people have no reserves to tap if they fall ill, making them more likely to die than those with a layer of fat to nourish them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/weekinreview/24kola.htmlYa know, I wish they would get it together and make up their minds about stuff like this. I have spent my entire life worshiping thinness, and now I find out that it is not so good.
I have decided that anything my grandmother told me about health and fitness is right- everything in moderation, eat balanced meals, and eat, eat, you are too thin! I am not paying attention to the scientist anymore. Just using common sense and my grandma's good advice from here on out.
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