WELL, THIS HARSHES THE NARRATIVE: Study Suggests Lower Mortality Risk for People Deemed to Be Overweight. “The report on nearly three million people found that those whose B.M.I. ranked them as overweight had less risk of dying than people of normal weight. And while obese people had a greater mortality risk over all, those at the lowest obesity level (B.M.I. of 30 to 34.9) were not more likely to die than normal-weight people.”

But remember, most of the anti-obesity crusading isn’t really about health, it’s about not wanting to look at fat people. So this won’t change much.