Can Obesity Ever Be Healthy?

The controversial concept of "metabolically healthy obesity" has been around for a while. It's the idea that people can carry extra weight without having high blood pressure, glucose intolerance, or high cholesterol—the signs of metabolic syndrome.

A new study of more than 6800 individuals questions that assumption. It found that metabolically healthy obesity at baseline did not predict a person's future risk for cardiovascular morbidity or mortality. Almost half of the metabolically healthy obese patients eventually developed metabolic syndrome, raising their cardiovascular risk. And the longer a person was metabolically unhealthy, the higher the risk.