Healthy lifestyle habits and mortality in overweight and obese individuals.

24 January 2012

Although the benefits of a healthy lifestyle are well established in the general population, less is known about how having a better lifestyle benefits obese people compared to overweight or  people with a normal BMI. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between a healthy lifestyle (eating five fruit and vegetables per day or more, the practice of regular exercise, not too much alcohol, and not smoking) and mortality in a large sample of the population, stratified by body mass index (BMI).

We examined the association between a healthy lifestyle and mortality in a sample of 11 761 men and women of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III; The subjects were aged 21 and older and had different points along the BMI scale,from normal weight to obesity. Subjects were enrolled between October 1988 and October 1994 and were followed for an average of 170 months.

After adjustments for age, sex, race, education, and marital status, results have shown that all groups (normal weight, overweight or obese) have benefited from the adoption of a healthier lifestyle, with the greatest benefit seen in the obese group.

A healthy lifestyle is associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of the initial body mass index.