A little safety cushion

FOR men, car crashes are yet another reason to lose weight. But not too much weight.

Being obese increases a man’s chance of dying in an automobile accident, but having a little bit of a paunch might cushion the blow, say scientists at the Injury Research Center of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Skinny men are more likely than normal-weight men to die in a crash, they found after analyzing data from more than 22,000 traffic accidents.

Women of any size and body mass index, however, got no added protection or harm regardless of the shape they were in. “It might be the difference in fat distribution,” said Shankuan Zhu, author of the study. Men who are obese tend to resemble apples.

When compared to the average American adult male, crash dummies are downright buff at 5 feet 10 inches and 170 pounds. That’s the body shape and mass that air bags are designed to protect and seat belts are made to fit.

But with almost two-thirds of American adults overweight or obese, fewer people getting into cars come in such good shape. “When we go shopping for clothing, there’s a men’s department and women’s department,” says Zhu, whose study will appear in April’s American Journal of Public Health. “Maybe in the future we can customize car design.”