The truth about belly fat

Everyone has some belly fat, including people with flat abs. Some of your fat is right under your skin, while others are deeper inside, around your heart, lungs, liver, and other organs. It is that deeper fat that may be the bigger problem, even for skinny people.

Fat is very important in the human body. It provides cushioning around your organs, but if you have too much of it, you may be more likely to get high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, dementia, and certain cancers, including breast cancer and colon cancer.

If you gain too much weight, your body automatically starts to store your fat in unusual places and exposes you to all sorts of conditions and illnesses.

With increasing obesity, you have people whose regular fat-storing areas are so full that the fat is deposited into the organs and around the heart, which is very dangerous.

Determining your belly fat

Get a measuring tape, wrap it around your waist at your belly button level, and check your girth. Do it while you’re standing up, and make sure the tape measure is level.

For your health’s sake, you want your waist size to be less than 35 inches if you are a woman and less than 40 inches if you are a man.

Having a ‘pear shape’ (bigger hips and thighs) is considered safer than ‘apple shape,’ which describes a wider waistline.

The apple versus pear shape is that, if you have more abdominal fat, it is probably an indicator that you have more fat in your body than is required.

How much belly fat you have is partly about your genes, and partly about your lifestyle, especially how active you are.

Belly fat develops with bad lifestyle and inactivity. In one study, skinny people who watched their diets but didn’t exercise were more likely to have belly fat than the ones that combine diet with exercise.

So, the key to keep the belly fat away is diet and exercise.