Digesting The Data On Excess Weight

When a study this year indicated that moderately overweight people outlive those whose weight is supposedly ideal, Americans might have flocked to their refrigerators in celebration. Instead, a survey commissioned by the Harvard School of Public Health suggests people treated that report with the same mix of indifference and skepticism they accord to much expert opinion on health. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they think “someone who is moderately overweight would be more likely than someone who is the recommended weight to die prematurely.”