A new study by the Journal of the American Medical Association supports the importance of staying slim as a young adult.
People who are obese through their 20s, 30s and 40s have an increased risk of having a heart attack or stroke later in life.
Information for the study was collected over a 30 year period from 3,275 Caucasian and African-American adults, ages 18-30 years.
Researchers found that for every year young adults were obese, their risk of developing hardened plaque in their arteries increased by two to four percent.
Obesity has steadily increased since the mid-1980s in the United States with people becoming more obese at earlier ages.