BUST THAT MYTH You can be obese and healthy

It appears you cannot be obese and healthy, according to researchers at the University of Birmingham who analysed the data of millions of British patients between 1995 and 2015 to see if this claim held true.

They tracked people who were obese at the start of the study (defined as people with a body mass index of 30 or more) who had no evidence of heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes at this point.

They found these people who were obese but “metabolically healthy” were at higher risk of developing heart disease, strokes and heart failure than people of normal weight.

But the study hasn’t appeared in a scientific journal and, as such, it will not have gone through a number of checks by other academics to judge whether it is scientifically sound.

It’s difficult, for example, to know how well other influential factors – such as diet, lifestyle or smoking – were taken into account.