Being overweight or underweight could knock four years off life expectancy, a study in a Lancet journal suggests.
The report, one of the largest of its kind, involved nearly 2 million people who were registered with doctors in the UK.
Researchers found that, from the age of 40, people at the higher end of the healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) range had the lowest risk of dying from disease.
But people at the top and bottom ends of the BMI risked having shorter lives.
BMI is calculated by dividing an adult’s weight by the square of their height.
A “healthy” BMI score ranges from 18.5 to 25.
Most doctors say it is the best method they have of working out whether someone is obese because it is accurate and simple to measure.
The study, published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, showed that life expectancy for obese men and women was 4.2 and 3.5 years shorter respectively than people in the entire healthy BMI weight range.
The difference for underweight men and women was 4.3 (men) and 4.5 (women) years.
BMI was associated with all causes of death categories, except transport-related accidents, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases.
