An age-old battle is the battle of the bulge. A lot of people are contenders. They try this or that, year after year, and still the weight goes up and down. Who are we kidding? As you grow older, keeping the weight off or at a healthy balance gets harder. Even the media creates thin-envy where some are even dying to be super skinny.
If it improves your health, losing weight is not a bad thing. But what if you lose the weight--are you guaranteed to be in good health? Slim people die every day from cancer, heart disease and complications related to diabetes. The point? Being healthy goes deeper – literally. It’s not really related to fat located near the skin at all. It goes back to what type of fat your body is storing. A person may be lean on the outside but have fat in his or her major organs, and that spells trouble. This type of fat is called visceral.
Dr. Ruth Loos, from the Medical Research Council in the U.K., commented that how much visceral fat a person has is pretty much based on his or her genetic makeup and whether this person is male or female. Ladies, we typically have more fat under the skin while the fellows have a tendency to have fat located in deep tissue. Genetically speaking, evidence shows (based on a study with 2.5 million participants), that the variant gene responsible for this enigma “causes an error” and fat that possibly should have been stored under the skin gets sent other places in the body. This, subsequently, interrupts the body’s normal operation.
What can be done? What does this mean for us? Well, since visceral fat affects the metabolic factors in a negative way – raised cholesterol, higher triglycerides and insulin resistance – the best way to combat this ordeal is through prevention. Make sure you schedule regular doctor visits where these levels are tested. That way, any abnormality can be caught in time and dealt with at an early stage.
So, just because you are skinny doesn’t mean your don’t have fat. I love saying that! But preventive care is one major way to circumvent any impending health issues stemming from this condition. Take it seriously and be healthy.
Resources:
Why Being Thin Doesn’t Always Mean Being Healthy
Healthland.time.com
http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/27/why-being-thin-doesnt-always-mean-being-healthy/
Thin and Healthy – Do These Always Go Together?
Cancer Health
http://www.cancer-health.info/thin-and-healthy-do-these-always-go-together/
Reviewed July 11, 2011
by Michele Blacksberg R.N.
Edited by Alison Stanton
Dita Faulkner is a blogger. Check her out at: http://redtoenails.wordpress.com/.