Dudes With Dad Bods Live Longer, Study Says We’ll Raise a Beer to That

If you’re a formerly fit dude who’s been mourning the mess your body has become during quarantine, have we got good news for you! Recently released research from The Ohio State University says that your brand-new dad bod just might help you live longer.

A study published last month in Annals of Epidemiology found that people who had a body mass index (BMI) in the normal range (18.5 – 24.9), then moved into the overweight range (25.0 – 29.9) had a lower mortality rate than those who stayed in the normal BMI range.

The study tracked the health of 4,576 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts (read: mostly white people) between 1948 and 2010. Researchers also tracked the health of 3,753 of their children from 1971 to 2014. They controlled for factors associated with obesity and increased mortality, like smoking, education and marital status. This is what they found:

– People who started out in the normal BMI range and became overweight lived the longest.

– People who started out and stayed in the normal BMI range lived the second-longest.

– People who started out and stayed in the overweight BMI range were in third place.

– People who started out and stayed underweight or who started out overweight but lost weight were in fourth place.

– Unsurprisingly, those who became obese or were always obese had the shortest life spans of all.

So what does this all mean? What the study reveals is that the relationship between health and weight isn’t as clear-cut as we think it is. While being obese is a pretty good indication that you’re going to die young, being thin, or even average weight, won’t necessarily protect you from serious health problems. The Quarantine 15 probably won’t be the death of you – and might even be good for you.

In other words, feel free to crack open another beer – and say “cheers” to your health.

Cover Photo: Yuri_Arcurs (Getty Images)

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