Amusing commentary on the overweight is good article

Living Longer Is the Best Revenge

The release of a report in The Journal of the American Medical Association indicating that overweight people actually live longer than normal-weight people represents an important moment in the history of world civilization. It is the moment when we realize that Mother Nature – unlike Ivy League admissions committees – doesn’t like suck-ups.

It turns out she doesn’t like those body-worshiping, multi-abbed marvels who’ve spent so much time at the bench press machine they look as if they have thighs growing out of either side of their necks. She doesn’t like those health-conscious rice cake addicts you see at Manhattan restaurants ordering a skinned olive for lunch and sitting there looking trim and fit in their tapered blouses while their buns of steel leave permanent dents in the upholstery.

Mother Nature, we now know, is a saucy wench, who likes to play cosmic tricks on humanity. If the report from researchers at the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is correct – and it is the most thorough done to date – then it seems that Mother Nature has built a little Laffer curve into the fabric of reality: health-conscious people can hit a point of negative returns, so the more fit they are, the quicker they kick the bucket. People who work out, eat responsibly and deserve to live are more likely to be culled by the Thin Reaper.

The author uses hyperbole and overweights (pun intended) the meaning of the study – but I did find it an enjoyable and funny read.