The areas where fat accumulates in your body give you one of two very common body shapes: fat accumulation in the lower body (the pear shape) is subcutaneous, while fat in the abdominal area (the apple shape) is largely visceral. The way fat deposits get distributed in the body is determined by several factors.:
- Heredity: a number of genes are involved in determining how many fat cells an individual develops and where these cells are stored
- Hormones: at menopause, estrogen production decreases and the ratio of androgen (male hormones present in small amounts in women) to estrogen increases, causing the fat to become more concentrated in the abdominal area.
The most important link between health risks and body weight or fat distribution is the waist circumference, especially in women. It is the simplest way to check for abdominal fat:
-Run a tape measure around your torso at about the level of your umbilicus
-Breathe minimally, and make sure not to pull the tape measure too tight that it depresses the skin.
-In women with a BMI of 25–34.9, a waist circumference more than 77 cm than is considered high risk,
A study that was done in 2006 found that in women, a large waist was correlated with diabetes risk — even when BMI was in the normal range (18.5–24.9).
A study comparing sedentary adults with those exercising at different intensities revealed that the non-exercisers experienced about 9% gain in visceral fat after six months. Subjects who exercised the equivalent of walking or jogging 20 km per week did not gain visceral fat, and those who exercised the equivalent of jogging 32 km per week successfully lost both visceral and subcutaneous fat.
Strength training (exercising with weights) may also help fight abdominal fat: an hour of weight training twice a week reduced the proportion of body fat by nearly 4% with a more sustainable visceral fat free abdomen.
Spot exercising, such as doing sit-ups, can tighten abdominal muscles, but it won’t get at visceral fat.
Diet is also key. Portion size is one thing you should keep an eye on, while emphasizing complex carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, and whole grains) and lean protein over simple carbohydrates such as white bread, refined-grain pasta, and sweetened drinks. Enriching your diet with polyunsaturated fats instead of saturated fats and trans fats can also help. But beware of drastically cutting calories: it is a bad diet strategy, because it can force the body into starvation mode, slowing metabolism and paradoxically causing it to store fat more efficiently later on.
Scientists hope to develop drug treatments that target abdominal fat. For example, studies of the weight-
•
