Middle-age paunch a source of alarm in study.(Main)

Byline: ROB STEIN Washington Post

WASHINGTON - Bad news for all those baby boomers starting to pile on the pounds as they go through middle age: You don't have to be obese - just a little overweight - to increase your risk of dying prematurely, according to a large government study.

The 10-year study of more than 500,000 U.S. adults found that those who were just slightly over weight in their 50s were 20 percent to 40 percent more likely to die in the next decade. Another study involving more than 1 million Korean adults, also being published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, produced similar results.

The studies, both released Tuesday, …