Exceeding a recommended body weight is not necessarily unhealthy, as is evident from the many overweight individuals who live long and reasonably healthy lives. About one-third of people who are overweight show no sign of metabolic disturbance, perhaps because they have genes that adapt them to being heavy. But as this chapter has repeatedly stressed, what matters most for health is not fat per se. Even more important predictors of health and longevity are where you store your body fat, what you eat, and how physically active you are. One landmark study, which followed nearly 22,000 men of all weights, sizes, and ages for eight years, found that lean men … Continue reading Daniel E. Lieberman