Updated July 2022
Belly Fat…Nobody likes it. Everyone wants to know how to lose belly fat. Not long ago it was a common belief that people with big bellies were both healthy and wealthy. It was desired to be fat. Today, with the industrialization of the agriculture and food production industries, this paradigm has reversed. It’s not desirable for good reasons, reasons very important for your health.
Why is it so important to lose belly fat?
Carrying around belly fat is costing us. Now we know that being fat is associated with very serious health conditions. Being overweight has no limitations with regard to an individual’s wealth; obesity impacts people of all ages and socioeconomic conditions. In fact today, obesity has more dire global health consequences than does starvation.
Key facts from the World Health Organization*
- Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980.
- Most of the world’s population lives in countries where being overweight or obese kills more people than being underweight.
- 41 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2014.
- Obesity is preventable.
Belly fat isn’t just making us look bad, it’s really weighing us down and causing serious disease.
As one becomes progressively overweight, we don’t like how we look or feel (both physically and mentally). Previously, it was thought that our body fat merely served as an energy reservoir. However, obesity is associated with many health issues including increased risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic diseases including Types-2 Diabetes and certain forms of cancer. We now know that there are many physiologic effects and types of fat and that the distribution and type of fat that we have has critical health implications. Belly fat is a visual indication of the buildup of the same fat that is associated with coronary artery disease.
Medical Complications of Obesity
Belly fat increases risk of two very serious disease conditions.
Belly fat (aka abdominal adiposity) is directly related to a person’s risk for both Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) and Type-2 Diabetes.
Did you know there are two types of belly fat?
There’s the outside or subcutaneous fat, and the inside or visceral fat. Subcutaneous fat is under the skin. Visceral fat surrounds your vital organs and is believed to be the most dangerous, responsible for Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) and Type -2 Diabetes. Subcutaneous belly fat behaves like other body fat, differently than the visceral fat, and is not more harmful than other body fat.
Liposuction does not reverse the dangerous effects of visceral fat.
Liposuction is a cosmetic surgical procedure which aims to reduce the appearance of belly fat. Liposuction removes the superficial fat just under the skin and leaves behind the dangerous, deeper visceral fat that surrounds our vital organs within our abdomen believed to be responsible for coronary heart disease (CHD), Type-2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome. It is no surprise that liposuction has NOT been shown to reduce the medical complications of increased belly fat, it just hides the fact that it’s there!
In the next articles on this topic of belly fat, we’ll focus on the causes of belly fat and how to get rid of belly fat.
*http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/
