Thursday fitness fun fact

In the immortal words of Dean Vernon Wormer in the film "Animal House": "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." And it won't make you rich.

A new study published in the British Medical Journal finds the healthier you are the richer you will be. Researchers examined the link between health and wealth in rich countries and found that healthier people are more productive at work, earn more and spend more days in the work force because they don't take as much sick leave.

It may seem obvious, but an investment in health produces big returns for individuals, their families and the economy as a whole. It's been widely accepted by economists that better health increases economic growth in poor countries. But the health-wealth correlation hadn't been examined in rich countries before professor Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and his colleagues took on the task in a study for the European Commission.

Results of the study were released this week. The researchers found some truly curious factors that lead to wealth, the first among them height. That's right, the taller you are the more likely you'll have more money than short people. Napoleon complex aside, height, it seems, has to do with childhood health.

"Some studies have examined measures such as height, which reflects health in childhood, and body mass index, which provides an indirect measure of health," the study says. "All other things considered, taller people earn more than average, whereas obese people tend to earn less, although the adverse consequences of obesity are greater for women than for men. However, these findings could reflect biases linked to the social acceptability of body images rather than a direct link to productivity."

Whether linked to social acceptability or not, the fact remains -- at least according to this data -- that being a tall guy provides a far greater advantage for earning more money than being a fat woman. 

Marke****ch