Study: Being obese can take years off your life | 3/18/2009 12:05:00 AM AP - Being obese can take years off your life and in some cases may be as dangerous as smoking, a new study says. British researchers at the University of Oxford analyzed 57 studies mostly in Europe and North America, following nearly one million people for an average of 10 to 15 years. During that time, about 100,000 of those people died. Source: Yahoo! Permanent link to Study: Being obese can take years off your life