A new study out of Japan finds that obese people live about five years longer than very skinny people while slightly overweight people live the longest. Specifically the results show that:
People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people.
In other words, being obese shortens your life by about 2 years over the optimal weight, which appears to be what is typically considered a little overweight. But being very thin shortens your life by 7 years. Clearly this study must have been sponsored by the fast food industry in order to build a case against new soft drink and fatty food taxes.