It should be called the "slightly overweight paradox". Article makes lots of qualitative statements. Much easier to look at the data (900,000 person study): ht

It should be called the "slightly overweight paradox". Article makes lots of qualitative statements. Much easier to look at the data (900,000 person study): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662372/figure/fig2/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662372/figure/f... Optimal BMI appears to be 23-25 (at least for minimising the risk of death). Another large study (1.46 million people) shows a similar result: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3066051/figure/F1/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3066051/figure/F... Looking at either side of optimal BMI: People with a BMI of 26 (BMI 25-30 'overweight') have mildly better survival than those with 21 (18.5-25 'normal'). Push BMI up a little bit to above 28 and death rates are worse than with a BMI of 21. Not a huge paradox. Maybe we should just shift 'normal' BMI range to 20-27.