A new study from Northwestern University in Chicago found that obesity in middle age may shorten a person’s life by about 5 years.

Researchers who followed 30,000 people for up to 50 years found that those of a healthy weight died at an average age of 82.3. Those who were obese lived to the age of only 77.7.

The study also concluded that people who are overweight and obese tend to live longer and healthier years than people of normal weight.
The team collected medical insurance data from 29,621 people over 65 in 2015 and originally recruited participants for a long-term health study in the 1960s and 1970s.

About 13,000 participants died in 2015, with deaths divided into several groups based on body mass index. The researchers found that the more obese a person was, the shorter their life expectancy.

They also found that people who are obese and overweight have a greater number of years of disease, and the years they lived in poor health. The results showed that obese people lived more than 10 years in poor health, compared to overweight people, who lived 7 years in a diseased condition, while some people of a healthy weight lived for 6 years.