STUDY debunks the notion of “healthy obesity”.

University College London researchers tracked the health of 2,521 men and women between the ages of 39 and 62. They measured each participant’s body mass index (a calculation based on height and weight), cholesterol, blood pressure, fasting blood sugar and insulin resistance, and ranked them as either healthy or unhealthy and obese or non-obese.

About one-third of the obese people had no risk factors for chronic disease at the beginning of the study, and were ranked as healthy obese.

But over time, this group began to develop risk factors for chronic disease. After 10 years about 40 percent had become unhealthy obese, and by the 20-year mark 51 percent had fallen into the unhealthy category, the study found.

Healthy non-obese people also slipped into poor health over time, but at a slower rate. After two decades, 22 percent had become unhealthy but were still trim, and about 10 percent more had become either healthy or unhealthy obese.