Being obese is linked to a significantly higher chance of serious disease and early death than being a healthy weight, research on more than 2.8 million adults suggests.
The chance of suffering serious illness goes up with increasing weight gain, experts analysing health, death and sickness data from UK adults found.
How much does the risk increase as your BMI rises?
Presented at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Glasgow, the study found that people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 to 35 were at 70% higher risk of developing heart failure than their healthy weight peers.
Even a BMI of 25 to 30 increased the risk by 20%, while a BMI of 35 to 40 more than doubled the risk and a BMI of 40 to 45 almost quadrupled the risk compared to people of a normal weight.
The study also found that compared with normal weight individuals, a BMI of 25 to 30 increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes and sleep apnoea by more than double, while a person with a BMI of 30 to 35 was more than five times as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes and almost six times as likely to develop sleep apnoea.