Most evidence linking body mass index or BMI to higher risk of premature death comes from statistics taken in middle or late adulthood. However, a new study asked middle-aged people about their weight at age twenty-five. Data from China, processed by researchers at Oxford Population Health found a significant link between early death and people who were obese in early adulthood. Those with a BMI of twenty-eight had an eighty-five percent higher risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease, compared to those with BMI around twenty. The study, Science Bulletin, shows early adulthood obesity risk to be independent of obesity later in life—suggesting early obesity has lasting effects that are not fully reversed by weight change later